


Crows and Crowns

by kathode_ray_tube



Category: Haikyuu!!, Mean Girls (2004)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mean Girls Fusion, Everyone Loves Yachi Hitoka, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Hinata Shouyou & Yachi Hitoka Friendship, Iwaizumi Hajime is a Good Friend, Kageyama Tobio is Bad at Feelings, Kozume Kenma is a Good Friend, Kuroo Tetsurou is a God, M/M, Multi, Oikawa Tooru Needs a Hug, POV Yachi Hitoka, Sawamura Daichi Needs Help, Sugawara Koushi is a Good Mom, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings, Yachi Hitoka-centric, Yamaguchi Tadashi is So Done
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24113614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathode_ray_tube/pseuds/kathode_ray_tube
Summary: "Welcome to North Shore High School!" grins the orange-haired boy in the seat behind her."Yeah, welcome," says the blue-eyed boy to her left with an awkward wave."Eeekyay?" garbles Hitoka.___AKA the Mean Girls AU that I really wanted to read. Updated on Wednesdays because on Wednesdays, we wear pink.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji & Yachi Hitoka, Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Haiba Lev & Kuroo Tetsurou & Oikawa Tooru & Tsukishima Kei, Haiba Lev & Yachi Hitoka, Haiba Lev/Yaku Morisuke, Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio & Yachi Hitoka, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Iwaizumi Hajime & Yachi Hitoka, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Kageyama Tobio & Kindaichi Yuutarou & Kunimi Akira, Kageyama Tobio & Oikawa Tooru, Kindaichi Yuutarou/Kunimi Akira, Kozume Kenma & Yachi Hitoka, Kuroo Tetsurou & Yachi Hitoka, Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei, Oikawa Tooru & Yachi Hitoka, Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi, Tsukishima Kei & Yachi Hitoka, Tsukishima Kei & Yamaguchi Tadashi, Yachi Hitoka/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 62
Kudos: 148





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to this godawful mess where Hitoka Yachi stars as our #relatablemaincharacter, the Crowns rule North Shore High School, Lev Haiba is definitely a masochist, the only language Tobio Kageyama can speak is English, and Kei Tsukishima and Tadashi Yamaguchi are not on speaking terms! Oh my, what a travesty.

“This is your lunch, okay? I put some money in there so you can buy some milk,” said twenty-eight-year-old Daichi Sawamura as he turned around from the driver’s seat and held out a brown paper bag. He cracked a nervous grin. “You can ask one of the big kids where to do that.”

“Remember your phone number?” interrupted Koushi Sugawara as he turned from the passenger’s seat with an equally nervous grin. “I wrote it down for you, just in case. Put it in your pocket, I don't want you to lose it. Okay?”

Hitoka Yachi felt her nerves calm a bit at the sight of their obvious panic, and tried her best to give them a reassuring smile and took the brown paper bag. “Daichi-niisan, Sugawara-san, don't worry so much! I'll be okay!”

Sugawara returned a watery smile and threw his arms around the sixteen-year-old, ruffling her hair. “Look at you. So grown up. I still remember when Daichi brought you over on our second date because your mom was on that business trip and I thought you were the cutest thing and we fed you and you ripped up my project but I couldn’t even get mad—”

“Suga, don’t cry,” muttered Daichi, patting his boyfriend’s back as he became more and more incoherent.

“We were the same age then as you are now!” continued Sugawara with a sob. “Time flies, you’ve grown up so fast—”

Hitoka could feel her smile becoming more and more forced as Sugawara sniffled and wiped his eyes with his sleeve and even Daichi started looking a bit weepy. She did know it was natural for parents to cry on their kids’ first day of school, but there were a few things that were very wrong with this picture.

One, she was sixteen, not five.

Two, they weren’t actually her parents.

Three, it wasn’t her first day of school. Sure, first day of school in Illinois, first day of school in America, but not her first day of school.

“I’ll see you guys when I get back from school,” said Hitoka when Daichi started wiping his eyes, opening the car door and getting out. “Love you!”

Sugawara grinned at her, eyes teary, and rolled down his window. “Love you too, Hitoka-chan!”

“See you at home!” added Daichi, leaning closer to the open window.

“Right!” Hitoka waved goodbye, ready to cross the road that separated her from her new school— _North Shore High School_ —only to nearly be mowed down by a big yellow bus.

Three voices screamed at once, and Hitoka turned back, trembling only slightly from the shock, to reassure the shell-shocked couple still waiting in the car. “I’m okay! I’m not dead! I’ll be careful, promise.”

Hitoka hadn’t even reached the other side of the road and she was already regretting moving to the United States. Everything looked so _wild_. It was so _crowded_ and disorganized and she missed Miyagi already.

Hitoka scampered to the side to avoid being stepped on by a boy with short hair that she could’ve sworn stood at two meters tall, narrowly missing being hit in the face by a volleyball. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a boy with cropped dyed hair surrounded by a group of scary-looking people stomp on a pile of burning…something.

By that group were two boys, one with thick eyebrows and black hair and the other with short pink-brown hair and a sleepy expression wrestling each other and trying to drag a boy with spiky, turnip-shaped hair away from another black-haired boy with an even sleepier expression.

 _I am going to die,_ Hitoka realized. Squeezing her eyes shut, she took a deep breath in an attempt to calm her nerves as she wondered why she’d ever _wanted_ to move here.

By the time Hitoka had found her homeroom classroom, she wished for nothing more than to go straight home, beg her cousin for money, and take the next flight right back to Japan.

At least there she wouldn’t be run over by a big yellow bus and die. Or get stepped on by a two-meter-tall guy and die. Or be set on fire by scary-looking people and die. Or get dragged into wrestling matches with more scary-looking people and die.

She just wanted to go _home_.

“Don’t sit there,” said a voice in English, and Hitoka snapped out of her internal rambling to meet eyes with a cheerful-looking boy with orange hair. “Keiji’s boyfriend’s gonna sit there.”

A boy with messy black hair and slender dark green eyes looked up from the desk next to where Hitoka had just tried to put her belongings, where he was scribbling chemical formulas on a pad of paper. “Huh? No, I don’t mind if you want to sit here—”

“Akaaaaaashi!”

A large sports bag slammed down where Hitoka’s foot had been just a second earlier and a boy with black and white streaked hair slid into the chair next to Keiji, rambling in rapid-fire English that Hitoka could barely decipher. “You’ll never guess what happened at morning practice, Aggaaaasheee, you should’ve come, it’s only the first day and Kubroo was—”

“Pain-in-the-ass Kuroo-san is the least of my concerns right now, Bokuto,” Keiji interrupted, then turned to Hitoka with an apologetic look. “Sorry about him, this is Koutarou Bokuto. He gets a bit overexcited sometimes and goes into tunnel vision and acts really dumb.”

“Don’t say it like that, Akaaaaashiiii,” whined Koutarou.

 _Kuroo-san?_ wondered Hitoka, pushing away the thought when she noticed Keiji looking at her expectantly. “O-oh, it’s nothing, I’ll just find another seat, ah, maybe this one—!”

A lanky boy with a perpetual smirk and messy bed hair had flopped into the chair that Hitoka had just been pointing to. “Oya oya? Who’s this, Brokuto?”

“It’s Rooster Head!” gasped the orange-haired boy from behind Hitoka, his voice drawing Hitoka’s attention away from a groaning Keiji and a grinning Koutarou. “Oi, Kageyama, you jinxed us.”

“Shut up, dumbass,” said a blue-eyed boy sitting next to the orange-haired boy, slouching in his chair.

“I don’t know,” said Koutarou with a frown. “Akaashiiiiiii, is she your friend?”

“Keiji has friends?” said a blonde boy snidely as he passed by, pushing his glasses up, ignoring Rooster Head’s cheer of recognition.

“Shut up, Kei,” grumbled Koutarou. “Nobody likes you.”

“Kouta-bro, I’m gonna have to stop you there—”

“Siding with the blondie, are we Tetsu-bro—”

“You jinxed us, you totally jinxed us, it’s all your fault if we have to sit through a class with them—”

“Shut _up_ , dumbass!” growled the blue-eyed boy, punching the smaller boy in the side.

Hitoka didn’t know what was happening, but she didn’t think this was the kind of crowd her cousin would appreciate, nor was this the kind of crowd that she wanted to be around to make a good first impression on the teacher. She backed away slowly—and right into the teacher.

 _“Sumimasen!”_ she yelped reflexively as a stack of papers and books collided with the ground, then turned red when she realized she’d reverted to her native language. “I’m so sorry! Let me help you with that—”

“Oh, you must be our exchange student!” said the teacher, pushing up his glasses. “From Japan, right? Hitoka Yachi?”

“Right!” Hitoka squeaked, giving the teacher a half-bow. She felt herself turn a bit red when she heard a few giggles trickle through the classroom.

The teacher smiled welcomingly. “My parents were second-generation Japanese Americans. I’m Mr. Takeda. Welcome to North Shore!”

“Thank you!” Hitoka replied with a shy smile. _Maybe things aren’t all bad here?_

The rest of the day didn’t go as smoothly though. Most of it was just a blur: a stressful, surreal blur. Things were extremely different from how things were done back home in Japan.

They had to switch classrooms for every class. There were only a few kids that were in more than one class with her. Every class was made up of different kids. Most kids were on their phones or even talking during class. The way every classroom was set up was different. Most teachers didn’t even use their whiteboard. Most teachers didn’t even care that kids were talking.

Looking for a lunch spot was hard. Back home, they had eaten in their own classrooms, with their classmates, but here there was a cafeteria full of scary-looking, unwelcoming people and tables half-occupied. (Hitoka ended up spending lunch by herself under a tree outside.)

It was almost like in the American movies that Hitoka had seen back when she was in Japan, and she wasn’t sure she liked this any better than at home.

The garage door slammed and her cousin’s voice brought her out of her thoughts. “We’re home!”

“Welcome home!” Hitoka called, not looking up from her English homework.

“So how was your first day?”

Hitoka set her pencil down on the coffee table as Daichi and Sugawara entered the living room. She said nothing, just shook her head.

Sugawara pouted. “Were the kids not nice? Did you not make any friends?”

“Everything was so… _loud,”_ Hitoka said, looking up at Sugawara with pleading eyes. “There were so many scary people. Everything is so different. I’ve never…I’ve never been so scared that I’d be set on fire.”

Daichi laughed, ruffling her hair. “Aww, Hitoka-chan. It’ll be okay!”

“Make some good friends, yeah?” Sugawara said, setting a bag of groceries on the kitchen counter. “Friends make everything a lot less scary. I’m sure you’ll find someone!”

 _Yeah,_ Hitoka thought as she turned back to her homework. _I hope so._

* * *

On the second day of school, Hitoka rushed to the safest-looking seat that was still open as soon as she got to school. She breathed a sigh of relief when she slid into the unoccupied seat, not hindered by anyone or anything.

“So is that your natural hair color?”

Hitoka turned to the orange-haired boy who had first spoken to her the day before, who was staring at her curiously.

“O-oh, yeah! Yeah, it is,” said Hitoka, tugging at her blond hair.

“It’s really pretty,” said the orange-haired boy with a smile. “And you’re from Japan, right? That’s what Takeda said yesterday.”

“Yeah,” Hitoka replied.

“Me and Kageyama took the Japanese elective for our second language requirement,” said the orange-haired boy, jutting his thumb at the black-haired boy dozing off at his desk behind him, who jerked out of a half-asleep state to wave at Hitoka. "So if there's anything that you really really need translated, um, we can try to help. Maybe."

“But we’re not that good, though,” continued the orange-haired boy. “Japanese is hard. And Takeda's the good teacher, we both got the other teacher and he spends most of the time just eating food and giving us stupid worksheets.”

“American people don’t understand Japanese,” muttered the black-haired boy under his breath, still sounding half-asleep.

“Your parents are Japanese!” the orange-haired boy protested, before sighing mockingly. “I’m Shouyou Hinata. This is Tobio Kageyama. He’s almost too dumb to function.”

Tobio glared, starting to seem a bit more awake. “Who’s the one who got a thirty percent on his last math quiz, huh, Hinata?”

“Shut up!”

 _“Boke_ , Hinata _boke!”_

Shouyou rolled his eyes and addressed Hitoka. “Yeah, see? The only thing he picked up from Japanese class is how to cuss at people.”

“Ah, haha,” Hitoka hedged, glancing at her schedule. “Um, so we have different classes today from yesterday, right?”

“Right!” said Shouyou with a grin.

Hitoka smiled back shyly. “So, uhh, this next class I have is health in Room G-14? Do you know where that is?”

“Ooh,” said Shouyou, snatching Hitoka’s schedule. “Health, Tuesdays and Thursdays, Room G-14.”

Tobio made a face, then bumped Shouyou’s shoulder. “Isn’t that in the back building?”

Shouyou’s expression flickered to surprise, and then to bright glee. “Oh, yeah, that’s in the back building! Yeah, we’ll take you there! It’s what friends are for, right?”

Hitoka felt her heart skip. _Friends._

“Thanks!” Hitoka grinned as the bell rang.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Hitoka is introduced to the Crowns, skips class, receives a map, and gets hit on by a scary-looking guy with a tongue piercing.

“Health, Japanese—aw, lucky, you get Takeda,” said Shouyou, holding up Hitoka’s schedule as the three of them shoved their way through the hallway. “We’ve been here for three years and not one year do we get Takeda. Ooh, you’re taking AP Studio Art?”

“Yeah, I like art,” Hitoka said with a small smile. “It speaks to people everywhere, doesn’t it?”

“Whoa, that’s an amazing reason. I like it,” Shouyou gushed, kicking open the door at the end of the hallway. “Come on, let’s go.”

“ _That_ back building?” groused Tobio. “That wasn’t what I meant, but okay.”

“Come on, Kageyama, it’s fun!” Shouyou whined, leading the three of them out into the sunny grass fields behind the main building of the school.

Tobio rolled his eyes, sitting down on the grass. “It’s the second day of school.”

Hitoka dodged a patch of mud on the grass. “Um, Shouyou? Where are we going? Where’s the back building?”

Shouyou grinned. “The back building burned down in nineteen eighty seven.”

Hesitating, Hitoka fiddled with her fingers and glanced back at the main building. “Won’t…won’t we get into some sort of trouble for this?”

“Why would we get you into trouble?” Tobio asked seriously, tilting his head to one side as he pulled out a pad of paper and a pencil. “We’re your friends.”

_Friends._

Hitoka knew that skipping class wasn’t the best idea, especially only on her second day of school, but…friends. She was in no position to pass up friends. She didn’t want to go through that again.

“Health class is a joke anyways,” said Shouyou, waving a hand. “The P.E. coach always teaches the class, and the last coach got fired after he got caught dating a junior girl. There’s a bet going around to see when this coach is gonna get caught with someone.”

“That’s…questionable,” Hitoka mumbled, cringing.

“So why’d you move here from Japan?” Tobio asked, glancing up at Hitoka as he paused to stretch out his writing hand. “Your parents here for research? That happens a lot.”

“Ah, no, my cousin and his boyfriend moved here for a job,” said Hitoka. “My mom thought it would be good for me to get some experience living in the United States, especially since she wants me to study abroad. I mean, in America. So I moved here with them this year.”

It wasn’t totally a lie. It was mostly true, actually. Her reason for moving had been more along the lines of not being able to deal with life in Miyagi anymore, though, rather than for experience in America.

 _I wonder how Kenma’s doing,_ Hitoka mused to herself. _He was always better at handling things than I was._

Once again, Shouyou broke Hitoka out of her thoughts. “Oh, that’s really cool! What do they do?”

“My cousin’s training to be on the police force, and his boyfriend is an elementary school teacher,” said Hitoka. “Both of them moved out of Japan to America after they graduated the same high school. They’ve known each other since before I was born.”

“What’s your name again?” Tobio interrupted, looking up from where he was writing.

“It’s Hitoka Yachi,” Hitoka responded.

“Need it spelled out for you, Kageyama?” teased Shouyou, only to get jabbed in the stomach.

 _“Boke,_ Hinata _boke!”_

Shouyou stuck his tongue out, then turned away with a pleased sigh, observing the running track in the distance. “Oh, man, look over there, Tobio. Thank god none of us have gym this period.”

“Hmm?” Tobio looked back up from his pad of paper, and squinted at the running track where a group of kids had just flooded. “Oh. I see what you mean. The Crowns.”

Hitoka frowned. “The Crowns?”

“They’re teen royalty,” said Shouyou with an eye roll. “If North Shore was _Us Weekly,_ they’d always be on the front cover.”

“That one over there, with the gray hair? That’s Lev Haiba,” Tobio said, pointing to a guy with hair a shade lighter than Sugawara’s. “He’s half Russian, half Japanese, and he’s one of the dumbest guys you will ever meet. He’s even dumber than Shouyou.”

“Am I the comparison for what’s dumb, Kageyama?” griped the orange-haired boy.

Tobio smirked. “Remember the time you got an eighty percent on that true-false quiz when you were trying to get a zero to protest Washijo’s teaching style?”

Hitoka nearly choked.

“Shut _up,_ Kageyama!” Shouyou wailed, his face bright red.

“Keep that up and you’ll sound like Tsukishima,” sniped Tobio with a nasty grin. He turned back to Hitoka, expression turning into a more reserved one. “That really tall blond with glasses? That’s Kei Tsukishima. He’s smart to the point of being dumb because he doesn’t understand anyone else, and he’s an asshole.”

Shouyou gasped loudly. “Don’t say asshole, Tobio! You're so vulgar!”

“That one with the messy black bedhead hair? That’s Tetsurou Kuroo,” continued Tobio, ignoring Shouyou’s indignant harrumph and Hitoka’s muffled laughter. “Both him and Kei are in our homeroom, actually.”

“Oh, the guy you were calling Rooster Head?” Hitoka queried.

“Yeah, Rooster Head,” Tobio affirmed.

“He’s from a rich family in Japan, actually,” chirped Shouyou. “His parents came here for research a few years ago, when we were going into middle school.”

Hitoka nodded in comprehension. _Ah, that must have been what Keiji meant by Kuroo-san yesterday._

“I wouldn’t trust him if I were you, though,” Tobio cut in. “He’s up in everybody’s business, he knows everything about everyone.”

Shouyou smirked. “That’s why his hair is so big. It’s full of secrets.”

“And evil takes a human form in Tooru Oikawa,” hissed Tobio, and for the first time, there was real malice in his voice, which surprised Hitoka. Up until now, both Tobio and Shouyou had seemed mostly amused, if not disdainful at worst, but now both of them were glaring at a grinning boy with wavy dark brown hair swept back elegantly.

Tobio tore his glare from the boy, who was now blowing kisses to a group of girls. “Don’t be fooled, ‘cause he might seem like your typical pretty, selfish, airheaded playboy, but in reality, Tooru Oikawa is so much more than that.”

“If North Shore had a queen bee, he’d be the queen bee,” said Shouyou. “He’s the star. The others are just there to make him look pretty. He always looks perfect, he always wins Spring Fling King—”

“Who cares, dumbass?” muttered Tobio, stretching out his fingers.

“I care!” Shouyou objected, then turned to vent to Hitoka. “Every year, the seniors throw this dance for the underclassmen called the Spring Fling, right? And whoever is elected as Spring Fling King and Queen automatically become next year’s heads of the student activities committee and I, as an active member of this committee, do care. As I should.”

“Anyways, Tooru is super aggressive, even when he’s pretending to be nice,” Tobio said with an air of finality. “And he’s got a terrible personality. Maybe even worse than Tsukishima.”

In the distance, the bell rang.

 _Did class already end? That was fast,_ thought Hitoka.

“Oh, it’s time for our next class already?” Shouyou sprang to his feet, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Have fun in Japanese with Takeda. You know how to get there, right?”

“Yeah, I can get there by myself,” Hitoka said, following suit. “Thanks for checking.”

Shouyou grinned widely. “Yeah, of course! It’s what friends are for, yeah? Well, see ya. Kageyama and I have gym now.”

“Wait outside your classroom after class,” added Tobio, who had already turned and started walking towards the building. “We’ll come get you for lunch. Later.”

For the first time since her start at North Shore, Hitoka felt her nerves calm, and she smiled. “See you!”

* * *

“Here, Hitoka,” said Tobio as soon as they’d reached each other, shoving a piece of paper into her hands. “This map is gonna be your guide to North Shore. It’s not quite worthy of AP Studio Art, but it’ll do.”

“Wow, thanks!” Hitoka looked over the map. _Wow, Tobio is a good artist._ “You have really nice handwriting.”

Tobio nodded. “Thank you.”

“Now, where you sit in the cafeteria is crucial, ‘cause you got everybody there,” said Shouyou, herding both Hitoka and Tobio into the bustling cafeteria. “See, over there are the J.V. jocks.”

A tall boy with hair dyed blond and styled with the middle of his fringe sticking up waved at Shouyou with a grin from a headlock by a shorter boy with short-cropped blond hair with two stripes of black above his ears.

“Asian nerds are over there.”

The sleepy-looking boy Hitoka had seen yesterday glanced up from his laptop and nudged the boy with turnip-shaped hair next to him, who was playing cards with a boy with light brown hair and swishy bangs and a boy in a red jacket with jet black hair parted down the middle.

“Cool Asians next to them.”

A group of girls sat together, one of them noticeably giving Hitoka a welcoming smile as she pushed up her glasses. Another one inhaled two rice balls at the same time, to the horror of her tablemates.

“Varsity jocks—honestly, when will Ushiwaka _ever_ wear anything other than black and purple?”

Said boy in black and purple sat down in the plastic chair at the head of the table, surrounded by a boy with wide eyes and bright red hair and a boy with unevenly parted copper-brown hair. Across from him sat a boy who was running a hand through his ash blonde hair.

“Those are the Burnouts. Like, literally burn.”

Hitoka recognized the boy with cropped dyed hair from the previous day who’d been stomping on the small fire in the courtyard. “Yeah, I’ve seen it happen.”

“Wait, really? They normally wait until at least the second week before they start burning their homework,” Tobio commented dryly.

“They burn their homework—?”

“And these are the greatest people you’ll ever meet,” announced Shouyou, cutting over Hitoka’s question as they arrived at a table with three other boys. “Ryuunosuke Tanaka—but we just call him Tanaka—Yuu Nishinoya—who goes by Noya—and Taketora Yamamoto.”

“‘Sup, new girl?” said Tanaka and Noya in unison, leaning in. Hitoka squeaked and automatically scooted behind Shouyou, eyes darting between Tanaka’s shaved head, Noya’s wild spike of dirty blond, and Taketora’s blond mohawk. _A mohawk…America’s intense._

“Guys, don’t crowd around her,” said Tobio mildly. “Hitoka, did you bring a lunch?”

_Ah. So I did forget something in my rush to get to school today._

“I guess I’ll have to buy something,” Hitoka sighed, poking at her cheek sheepishly. “That way, right?”

Tobio nodded. “Yeah. Have enough money?”

“Oh, no,” Hitoka whispered to herself. “I forgot to bring money.”

Eyebrows scrunching together, Tobio dug into his pocket and pulled out a five dollar bill, shoving it into Hitoka’s hand. “You can pay me back tomorrow. I brought lunch today.”

Hitoka smiled up at Tobio gratefully. “Thank you so much!”

“It’s nothing, really.” Tobio sat down next to Shouyou, expression neutral. “Just get your lunch.”

Hitoka’s smile didn’t fade even as she was handed a tray of shady-looking food that didn’t seem appealing at all. All she felt was relief and buoyant happiness. The nightmare that had been her first year of high school wouldn’t repeat. Now she had friends, and she was sure that—

“Watch out!”

A backpack collided with her tray, jolting it out of her hands, and it clattered to the ground, the food spilling into a mess at her feet.

Amidst the gasps of the kids around her, Hitoka felt a pang of embarrassment. “My sandwich…”

A hand snapped in front of her face, shocking her out of her thoughts. “Hey, you good?”

Hitoka looked up, eyes locking onto the cropped dyed hair she’d seen on the guy Shouyou had pointed to when telling her about the Burnouts. _Oh, it’s a scary person—is that a tongue piercing?_

“A-ah, yeah, I’m—I’m fine!” Hitoka forced a grin.

The apologetic look on Burnout guy’s face had been replaced by a leer. “Ooh, you’re cute. I'll help you clean up if you give me your number.”

“S-sorry?” squeaked Hitoka, lurching backwards.

“Your phone number,” said Burnout guy, who stepped closer to Hitoka as she inched backwards. “You’re cute. I wouldn’t mind hitting you up sometime. Come on, what’s your number?”

“Yuuji,” said a voice from behind Hitoka.

“Tooru,” said Burnout guy, straightening up. His predatory smile faded.

Hitoka froze. _Tooru as in Tooru Oikawa? Like, the guy that Shouyou and Tobio were talking about earlier? The pretty queen bee guy with the terrible personality?_

Sure enough, standing behind her was Tooru Oikawa in all his glory, a disdainful expression on his handsome face, dark brown hair ruffled into a hairstyle befitting an idol, one hand on his hip and the other holding a lunch tray. “Is it too much to ask you to stop harassing nice girls like…what’s your name?”

“Hitoka,” supplied Hitoka.

“Well, is it, Yuuji?” drawled Tooru, gently pushing Hitoka behind him as he stepped towards Burnout guy. “Honestly, Yuuji. Why are you such a skeez?”

“I’m just being friendly,” Yuuji muttered, stepping back. “Chill.”

Tooru clicked his tongue. “Nuh-uh. Apologize to Hitoka for being such a creep.”

“I-it’s okay, really,” Hitoka stammered. “It’s not that b-big of a deal. I don’t—”

“No, Hitoka. It’s not okay. Yuuji clearly hasn’t learned any manners.” Tooru spoke slowly, derision dripping from his words. “Apologize to Hitoka, Yuuji.”

“Sorry,” Yuuji muttered.

Tooru’s face lit up with a wide grin. “Problem solved! So you can go shave your back now. Bye, Yuuji.”

“Bitch,” grumbled Yuuji as he turned around, swinging his backpack over his shoulder.

“Here, let me help you clean that up,” said Tooru, handing off his tray to someone standing behind him to kneel down and help Hitoka collect the raw carrots that had spilled out of her lunch plate. “Thanks for taking my tray, Kei. Tetsu, it’d be great if you could get another lunch for Hitoka. Lev, could you get a couple paper towels? The milk carton broke.”

“On it!” The gray-haired boy behind Tooru flipped two thumbs up and loped towards the bathrooms with an easy grace, while the messy-haired boy next to him just nodded with a smirk and headed towards the lunch line. The blond boy with glasses left, a lunch tray in each hand.

Hitoka sat back on her heels and bit her lip nervously. “Oh, you don’t need to—”

“No worries, no worries!” Tooru’s eyes sparkled with the intensity of his smile. “We’re glad to help a cute girl like you.”

At Tooru’s wink, Hitoka felt her face heat. “O-oh. Thanks, I guess?”

“So adorable,” Tooru cooed, ruffling her hair with his free hand, before turning around to sweep up the breadcrumbs on the floor into one hand, dumping it onto the tray.

By the time the food had been cleared from the floor and the gray-haired boy—Lev—had handed off a bundle of paper towels to Tooru, the boy with messy hair—Tetsurou—had also joined them, leaning against the nearest lunch table with a new tray of food in his hands.

“Here you go,” Tetsurou said, lips quirking upwards, and he handed the tray to Hitoka. “New, right? Don’t ever get the sandwiches. They taste awful. Pizza’s much better.”

Hitoka ducked her head. “Thank you so much. I’ll pay you back—”

“No, no,” interrupted Tetsurou, flicking one hand lazily. “Five dollars is nothing. Think of it as my way of saying welcome to North Shore.”

“Oh. Um, thanks,” Hitoka nodded politely again at the two of them, before pivoting around to head for the table where Shouyou and Tobio were both waiting with wide-eyed expressions.

“Wait.”

Hitoka stopped and turned back around to meet Tooru’s eyes questioningly.

Tooru flashed her a toothy grin, one that made Hitoka feel vaguely hunted. “Come with us and sit down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to writing this, the number of times I've watched the first ten minutes of Mean Girls surpasses the number of brain cells I have. To be perfectly honest, I've watched the first ten minutes of the movie so many times that I've memorized it, down to the background music. This is slightly concerning. And every time I notice more and more weird stuff. Send help.
> 
> Also, yeah, the Plastics are supposed to be three people but I thought it'd be fun to have four Crowns because, well, why not. :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Hitoka has lunch with the Crowns, is talked into spying on them, and goes to art class.

“You’re a junior, right?” said Tooru as he looped one arm around Hitoka’s shoulders and steered her towards the table in the middle of the cafeteria.

Vaguely, the map of the cafeteria Tobio had made for her earlier flashed in her mind. _CROWNS SIT AT THE CENTER. STEER CLEAR AT ALL COSTS._

 _I’m doing such a terrible job of avoiding the Crowns,_ Hitoka thought helplessly. Noticing that Tooru was still waiting for a reply, she hurried to respond. “Oh—yeah. Yeah, I’m a junior.”

“And I was right about you being new, right?” tacked on Tetsurou from Hitoka’s other side.

“Yeah,” Hitoka replied with a polite smile as Tooru pulled out a chair for her, gesturing for her to sit.

“So that’s why I don’t know you,” Tooru sighed, sitting down gracefully in the chair next to the one he’d just pulled out for her and flipping his hair back. “Ah, I was worried. I knew I would have noticed you if you were here last year.”

“Yeah, I just moved here from Japan,” explained Hitoka as she sat down next to Tooru.

“Oh, you’re from Japan! I’m Lev Haiba, my mom’s also from Japan!” said the gray-haired boy sitting across from her, grinning and introducing himself with an enthusiastic handshake.

“So, where in Japan are you from?” said a smooth drawl in perfect Japanese, and Hitoka turned in vague surprise to Tetsurou, who was seated on Tooru’s other side.

“I’m from Miyagi,” Hitoka responded in Japanese. “I went to school in Sendai.”

“Wait, what’s that mean?” Lev queried, switching the conversation back to English.

The blond sitting across from Tetsurou looked up from his rice and gave Lev a disgusted look. “It means she’s from Miyagi and she went to school in Sendai. Honestly, Haiba. You’re half-Japanese and you’ve taken the Japanese elective for three years.”

“Miyagi…” Lev frowned. “Is that a city?”

“Prefecture. Honestly, is your brain made of oatmeal?” the blond said acerbically.

“Come on, Kei,” Tetsurou interrupted, reaching over to ruffle the blond’s hair. “Be nice to Lev.”

Kei knocked away Tetsurou’s hand and glared. “Not worth it.”

“So is this your first time in America?” Tooru asked Hitoka as he propped his elbows against the table, chocolate brown eyes gleaming with curiosity.

“Yeah, it is,” Hitoka said.

“But your English is really good,” complimented Tooru. “You’ve really lived in Japan all your life?”

“Yeah,” Hitoka responded awkwardly.

Tooru leaned back, delighted. “Shut up.”

Hitoka didn’t know what to say, so she just shrugged.

“Shut. Up!” The bright smile on his face contrasted the words that Hitoka had been pretty sure she remembered were supposed to be harsh, or impolite at the very least.

“I…didn’t say anything?”

Tooru’s gaze slid to her wrist. “Oh my gosh, I love your bracelet. Is it from Japan?”

“Ah, no, my cousin got it for me when his college went on a trip to Italy,” said Hitoka, twisting her fingers together and tugging a bit at the golden chain.

“It’s adorable,” Tooru sighed.

“So _fetch_ ,” added Tetsurou.

Tooru’s brows furrowed. “What is fetch?”

“Oh, it’s, like, slang,” Tetsurou explained, waving one arm haphazardly. “From England.”

“Pfft, England,” Kei scoffed quietly, grunting when Tetsurou whacked him on the head.

Tooru raised his eyebrows. “Mhm. Hitoka, could you give us some privacy for, like, one second?”

“Yeah. Sure,” responded Hitoka, nodding. Once the four had turned away from her—she breathed a sigh of relief, the weight of their combined gazes had been too much and she’d started sweating already from the nervousness—she whipped her head around to meet eyes with Shouyou and Tobio, who were staring at her with expressions just as confused as she felt.

 _What are you doing?_ Shouyou mouthed.

 _I don’t know,_ Hitoka mouthed back.

“Okay, you should just know that we don’t do this a lot, so this is like a really huge deal,” Tooru said. Hitoka turned back around to focus her attention on him; he was looking intently at her, a confident smile gracing his features.

Tetsurou spoke up from Tooru’s other side with a grin. “We want to invite you to have lunch with us, every day for the rest of the week.”

 _STEER CLEAR AT ALL COSTS,_ shouted a voice in Hitoka’s head.

Hitoka shook her head slightly, raising both of her hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Oh, i-it’s okay—”

“Coolness!” Tooru interrupted. His smile was so bright it was almost scary. “So we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“On Wednesdays, we wear pink!” Lev added through a mouthful of pizza.

* * *

“You should totally do it.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, in a part that wasn’t completely terrified out of her wits, Hitoka noted that Tobio’s smile would almost look like Tooru’s, if Tooru had been contemplating a career as a serial killer.

Tobio continued smiling, oblivious to how badly he was scaring Hitoka. “You should do it. Then you can tell me all of the horrible things that Tooru says.”

“Tooru seems…sweet,” Hitoka squeaked with a shrug. After all, he had defended her from that scary tongue piercing guy. And gotten Tetsurou to buy her a second lunch. And helped her clean up.

And he’d waited for her after lunch and showed her to her English class, before leaving with a peace sign, a greeting to the girls in her class, and a wink that had been directed at her alone. That had been really thoughtful, actually. All the girls in that class had wanted to talk to her, and she’d made a couple friends, all of whom had offered their help if she needed any with the English homework.

“Tooru Oikawa is not _sweet,”_ hissed Tobio, sounding downright furious, and the serial killer smile was replaced by an even scarier expression that nearly made Hitoka run away screaming. “He’s a scum-sucking road whore. He ruined my life!”

“He’s fabulous, but he’s evil,” Shouyou added as he skipped up to the two. “Talking about Tooru, right?”

Tobio’s glare faded into a less venomous one. “You’re here. What took you so long, dumbass?”

“You never listen to me about your swearing, huh?” Shouyou retorted lightly, punching the taller boy’s arm.

“Why do you hate him?” Hitoka blurted at Tobio.

Tobio looked over at her, expression totally serious. “Hmm? What do you mean?”

“Tooru. You seem to really hate him.”

“Yes,” Tobio said bluntly. “What’s your question?”

“I mean,” Hitoka hedged, twisting her fingers together, “my question is, why?”

Shouyou patted Hitoka on the shoulder comfortingly. “It’s okay to ask. Back in middle school, Tooru started this rumor that Tobio—”

“Shouyou,” Tobio interrupted with a deadly cold tone. “Shall we not?”

“Guess it’s not okay to ask,” muttered Shouyou.

“Look, this isn’t about hating her,” Tobio announced, turning back to Hitoka with a more earnest expression. “Okay? I just think that it would be fun if you were to hang out with them and tell us everything they say.”

“So what do they even talk about?” queried Hitoka, arms flailing in her confusion.

“Hair products,” Shouyou replied immediately.

“Volleyball,” Tobio said straight after.

“Fashion.”

“Ashton Kutcher.”

Hitoka blinked. “I-is that like a band—?”

“Would you just do it?” cut in Tobio, voice skipping up by an octave. He cleared his throat at Hitoka’s wide-eyed look, retreating a bit. “Please?”

Hitoka hesitated. This didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like a good way to repay the boy who had helped her out in front of the entire cafeteria, the boy who had made sure people knew that they were on good terms so that she’d have friends in class. And anyways, talking about people behind their backs…this didn’t feel right at all.

 _We’re your friends,_ echoed back Tobio and Shouyou’s voices in her mind from just earlier that day.

Sighing internally, Hitoka knew that she wouldn’t be able to resist their request. _Friends. So much rides on having friends._

“Okay, fine,” Hitoka capitulated. “Do you have anything pink?”

“No,” Tobio grunted.

“Yes!” Shouyou chirped.

Tobio shot him a judgmental look. “Why do you have—”

“Because Natsu,” Shouyou said before Tobio could even finish his sentence. “My little sister. My mom wanted us to be matching when we went to see family last year, my sister’s favorite color is pink, and I’m a nice brother, so.”

Tobio snorted with laughter.

“Hey! Don’t laugh!” barked Shouyou. “And pink isn’t even that bad of a color. Anyways, it should fit just right, Hitoka, since I’m just a bit taller than you and it was from a year ago.”

The warning bell rang, and all three startled.

“Okay, time for eighth period,” Shouyou sighed, threading his arms through his backpack straps. “Kageyama and I need to get to math. Your studio art class is this classroom right here, Hitoka.”

“Oh, thanks!” Hitoka was surprised that Shouyou had remembered that her last class was studio art. “See you guys tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow!” Shouyou beamed, waving wildly with one hand as he grabbed Tobio by the wrist and started pulling him in the opposite direction.

“See you,” repeated Tobio, who nodded politely at her and turned to berate Shouyou for trying to drag him away.

Hitoka took a deep breath, blowing it out as she faced the door to her art classroom. She was so happy to have gotten to art class. After all, it had been one of the things that she’d actually been considered good at, back at the private school in Japan she’d gone to for junior high and her first year of high school.

On opening the door, the smell of paint, cleaner, and permanent marker wafted through the air. Hitoka breathed it in—it was even better than the art classroom back home. Spacious, well-lit, and with one wall made up entirely of glass, high tables with four high stools placed around each set of two, and not many people in the class yet, Hitoka was sure she’d entered heaven.

Although having friends was nice, Shouyou and Tobio had been a bit too chaotic for her to be automatically accustomed to. The Crowns had been even more chaotic (Hitoka’s mind briefly flickered to wondering if Lev was okay, with both Kei and Tetsurou insulting him so much all the time) and a single lunch period with them had drained her of all her energy. Here, she could be as calm as she liked. Here, nothing could mess her up.

“Sit wherever you want!” said the teacher with a bright smile at her _—Mr. Takinoue—_ as he gestured at all the open tables.

“Hey, Hitoka,” said a voice behind her. She turned around to see Keiji from her homeroom smiling lightly at her from a seat at the table closest to the projector screen. “Nice to see we have a class together.”

“Yep!” Hitoka nodded fervently. Keiji was nice. He was calm. He wouldn’t be chaotic to the point of confusing her into a headache. “Can I sit here?”

“Yeah, go for it,” Keiji replied, gesturing to the seat across from him.

Hitoka slid into the chair and began to take out her supplies from her backpack. _I’m so excited. I wonder what we’re doing today? Good thing I checked the website over the summer, so I actually got the summer assignment done. I hope they’re okay, but what if they’re not good enough? What if he says my drawing is awful and I’m not good enough for this class and I get kicked out and—_

“Hey, is this seat open?”

Hitoka turned around, and her heart thumped traitorously.

The boy towering next to her had messy dark hair that seemed almost tinged green, lean but slightly muscular limbs covered by a simple T-shirt and jeans, a soft smile on a lightly freckled face, and the kindest pair of olive green eyes she’d ever seen. Scratch that, the kindest pair of eyes she’d ever seen, period.

“A-ah, yeah, sure!” Hitoka squeaked, nodding fervently. She could feel her cheeks heating up. It had been years since the one other crush she’d ever had: Aoi Himekawa from Class 2-C, and they had been seven at the time. It hadn’t worked out, of course, but it was fine. Hitoka hadn’t ever really felt the need to discuss crushes, anyways, as her best friend had been wholly disinterested in the topic, and she hadn’t had enough time for crushes, either.

But this crush had just hit her like a big yellow school bus, and she had just met him.

“Is this your journal?”

Hitoka jumped and realized that the boy now sitting next to her was picking up her sketchbook.

“O-oh, yeah! It’s mine,” she repeated hastily.

“Do you mind if I take a look?” the boy asked.

Hitoka mentally flailed for about three seconds before she responded. “S-sure, go ahead!”

The boy smiled at her and started to flip through the pages of the sketchbook. “Whoa, this is good. I really like your art style, it’s super unique.”

“H-haha, thank you,” Hitoka managed.

“Did we always just have art different periods? Or is this your first time taking art here?” the boy questioned, voice tinged with something that sounded like surprise. “I don’t remember seeing this art style at any of the showcases before.”

“Yeah, I’m new,” said Hitoka shyly. “I just moved here from Japan.”

“Oh!” the boy grinned. _“Watashi wa Yamaguchi Tadashi desu.”_

Hitoka knew that she had just turned into a tomato. Her face was so hot she was absolutely sure it was bright red. “I-it’s nice to meet you, Tadashi. I’m Hitoka Yachi.”

Tadashi’s laugh was bright. “Nice to meet you too, Hitoka. I look forward to spending this year of art class with you!”

 _My heart isn’t going to survive this year,_ Hitoka thought blankly. For some reason, that didn’t seem too bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Hitoka finally meets Yamaguchi!! Honestly, I feel like the fandom typically characterizes Yamaguchi as a nervous wreck--which, of course, he often is, especially when it comes to volleyball games and big scary people--but like, I mean. He's friends with Tsukki. He can't possibly be that sensitive if he's friends with Tsukki. So, I'm going to try to do his sassy side justice because yes, Yamaguchi is a pure bean but that doesn't make him shy. And Yamaguchi is also a tall bean. Which we often forget because Tsukki is too dang tall.
> 
> A side note that Takinoue is the art teacher because in season 4, it's Takinoue who makes the "I'm Awesome Video" for Karasuno so he probably has the best grasp on artistic stuff out of all the adults in Haikyuu, heh.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Daisuga are cheesy, Kenma promises to visit, a crush (or two?) are revealed, and Hitoka is addressed as "Baby" for the very first time.
> 
> (And happy birthday to our snek boi Daishou who may or may not be mentioned at some point.)

“Hey, we’re home. How was your second day?”

Hitoka paused her music and turned around from the coffee table, taking a much-needed break from her homework. Daichi and Sugawara were home almost three hours late—it was already nine in the evening, now that Hitoka actually checked the clock—and she’d waded through her flood of homework and two rounds of instant noodles since she’d gotten home.

“It was fine,” Hitoka said, vaguely remembering the chaos of her day at school through the haze that was calculus taking up the forefront of her brain.

“Were people nice?” Daichi questioned.

Mind flitting back to Tooru’s scary smile and Tobio’s scarier smile, Hitoka shook her head. “No.”

“Did you make any friends?” Sugawara queried.

_Friends._

Hitoka’s lips curved in a wry smile. “Yeah.”

“Huh,” Sugawara huffed, flopping down next to Hitoka on the ground. “People weren’t nice, but you made friends?”

“They weren’t mean,” explained Hitoka. “They just weren’t nice.”

Sugawara looked down with a grin before ruffling Hitoka’s hair. “Atta girl.”

Hitoka grinned back, returning her attention to her last homework assignment. “Do either of you remember anything about series? I’m doing okay right now, but I think I’ll need help soon.”

“Oh, man,” Sugawara groused. “I just remember I hated them with a passion.”

Daichi sat down on her other side, skimming her homework. “Oh, these. I don’t think I thought they were that bad?”

“Lies!” Sugawara sprang up from the ground, pointing an accusing finger at Daichi. “You cried to me for three hours the night before our series test because you couldn’t figure out Taylor series!”

Daichi sputtered indignantly. “Why do you remember that?”

Sugawara smiled sweetly.

“Oh, hell—Suga, no,” groaned Daichi, face bright red.

“Why were you two home so late, anyways?” Hitoka asked, picking her pencil back up to scribble out the answer to the last question on the page. When she didn’t hear a response, she glanced up only to realize that Daichi’s face was now as red as the flowers in the vase on the other end of the coffee table, and Sugawara was only slightly less flushed than his boyfriend.

“Actually, don't even tell me,” sighed Hitoka. She picked up her homework and straightened it out before tucking it into her binder, which she slipped into her backpack. “It’s almost eleven back in Japan right now, right?”

“Yep.” Daichi nodded in affirmation, and Hitoka noted that his face had gone back to normal. “You should text your mom. She might be on a lunch break now.”

“I’ll text her tomorrow morning, when it’s night time for them and I won’t distract her from her work,” Hitoka suggested. “I was thinking about texting Kenma.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” said Sugawara, surprised. “Hey, tell him we said hi and want to know how he’s doing, okay? And remember to tell him to come visit soon!”

Hitoka nodded and grabbed her phone, turning towards the stairs to go to her room. “I will!”

Tripping up the stairs two steps at a time, Hitoka went into her room and dropped herself onto the beanbag chair that Sugawara had insisted on furnishing her room with. Turning on her phone, she opened up her messages and sent a quick text to her best friend. _Kenma! How are you?_

Hitoka had been seven when she noticed Kenma sitting in the back of her class for the first time, reading a book that, from the thickness alone, didn’t look like it belonged in a second grade class. A few years later, when the book had been switched out for a PSP and Hitoka had found herself in short supply of friends, Kenma had been the one to offer her a go on his PSP at the new game that everyone was talking about while he watched her play and instructed her quietly. A few weeks after that, Kenma had kicked someone in the stomach while defending Hitoka, and soon enough lunch periods were no longer lonely, as they were spent with Kenma, who was shyer than Hitoka was and maybe even more self-conscious, but had a better sense of how to handle bullies.

_I really do owe so much to Kenma,_ Hitoka thought with a grateful sigh. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t have lasted as long as she did in Miyagi if it hadn’t been for his friendship and his quiet but vehement loyalty.

Her phone buzzed, and a reply flashed on the screen. _Bored. How’s America?_

_Very chaotic, very scary, and very loud,_ Hitoka responded. _I almost got hit by a bus yesterday. Also, Sugawara and Daichi want you to visit._

_Loud? No thanks,_ came Kenma’s reply.

Hitoka frowned. _Kenmaaaaaa!_

_Just kidding. Are you making friends? Anything big?_

Recalling the chaos of the day and the friends she’d made, Hitoka smiled. _Yeah, I made a couple friends. They seem really nice. They bought me lunch because I forgot mine. Oh, and there’s this really cute guy in my art class._

A few moments passed before the icon at the bottom of her screen showed that Kenma had started typing again. _No relationships for you,_ and Hitoka laughed at how she could almost hear her best friend saying those exact words in his customary annoyed tone.

_His art’s really good. And he’s really nice. He wasn’t scary at all._

The pause after that message was even longer. _When I come visit, introduce us. You are a terrible judge of character._

Hitoka sighed in amusement. Ever since the fiasco that had been middle school, Kenma had decided that Hitoka had no sense of who and who not to trust, and had taken it upon himself to keep away people that he deemed untrustworthy. Since middle school, however, Hitoka had been consciously working on becoming more perceptive and trying to notice things better, and she was pretty sure that she was right about Tadashi Yamaguchi being a good person.

Capitulating anyways, Hitoka typed back. _Fine, fine_. _Then you better visit soon._

_Yeah, yeah,_ responded Kenma. _Winter break._

Hitoka grinned.

* * *

Having lunch with the Crowns was like leaving the actual world, and entering popular world. And popular world had a lot of rules.

Hitoka’s head spun trying to mentally translate and remember everything that Lev was currently telling her in rapid English.

“You can’t wear a tank top two days in a row, and you can only wear a polo shirt once a week. So I guess you picked today,” said Lev, nodding to the pink polo shirt Hitoka was wearing.

Hitoka wilted. Her outfits typically consisted of a white polo shirt and a black skirt with tights underneath—reminiscent of her days of wearing school uniforms—and she didn’t look forward to explaining to Daichi and Sugawara why she would need to buy an entirely new wardrobe.

“Oh, and we only wear sweat pants or track pants on Fridays,” Lev added. “Now, if you break any of these rules, you can’t sit with us at lunch. I mean, not just you, like any of us. Okay, like, if I was wearing track pants today, I would be sitting over there with, uhh, that group over there.”

Tetsurou lifted his head from where he was laying one side of his head on the table and slowly chewing on an apple. “Morisuke Yaku’s group? I thought you’d be over him by now.”

Hitoka blinked. _Morisuke Yaku…isn’t he that really nice, calm guy that sits next to Keiji in art class? He reminds me of Suga-san._

Lev harrumphed. “Of course I’m not over him.”

“You’ve never spent this much time pining over one person,” Tetsurou commented. “You normally just moved on from people after a week. Like that one girlfriend you had that I actually thought would last—you dumped her after three weeks. And that guy whose name I forgot—you spent two weeks chasing after him, and then you broke up with him after three days.”

Finishing off his hamburger, Lev shrugged. “And?”

Tooru joined the conversation at this point. “And it’s been—what, four months since you first started crushing on Morisuke?”

“Five months,” Kei interjected. Hitoka quietly giggled at how tired and disinterested he sounded. “It’s August, and he first told me about Morisuke in March when his math teacher got him a tutor because he was worried about Lev not being able to pass the class. He hasn’t dated anyone else since then. Oh, except for prom.”

“Morisuke Yaku is the love of my life,” Lev announced, chomping down on a second burger.

Kei stared at Lev disbelievingly, one eyebrow raised. “He sprained your wrist.”

Hitoka nearly spat out her water. _Sprained Lev’s wrist—?_

“It was an accident!” whined Lev, putting his hamburger down on his plate so that his hands were free to gesture in protest. “Just ‘cause he’s short, he doesn’t know that he’s actually really strong! And he felt really bad afterwards and he cried and it was cute even though he was yelling at me and he tried to pay my hospital bills and anyways it was ‘cause he was really mad at me because, I mean, he spent hours after school every day for two weeks tutoring me but I got a twenty seven percent on that math quiz and I was still joking about how short he is—”

“You are hopelessly stupid. I don’t see why Yaku puts up with tutoring you, and I don’t see why you keep going back to him,” Kei deadpanned. “Maybe you’re just a masochist.”

“Um,” Lev garbled through his hamburger, “what’s a masochist? Does it mean dumbass? So are you finally using some new insults?”

Kei looked ready to tear Lev’s head off with his bare hands.

Tetsurou snickered, turning back to Hitoka. “Anyways, since Lev is so obviously distracted, I’ll finish the rules for you,” he drawled at a lower volume in Japanese. Hitoka mentally thanked him. “We always vote before we ask someone to eat lunch with us, because you have to be considerate of the rest of the group. I mean, you wouldn’t get a haircut without asking your friends first if it’s a good idea, no?”

Was this actually how friend groups worked? Hitoka had no idea. “I wouldn’t?”

Tetsurou grinned sharply, teeth showing. To the Hitoka from a month ago, who had just moved to Evanston, it might have seemed to be an intimidating smile, but to the new Hitoka—the one who had responded to Tooru’s predatory smile with a smile back, the one who had withstood Tobio’s serial killer smile with only a tiny squeak of fear—Tetsurou’s smile seemed kind in comparison.

“Right. Oh, and it’s the same with crushes. You might think you like someone, but, well…” Tetsurou shrugged. “You could be wrong.”

“I’m going to go check up on the gym to see who’s taking it after school today so I can get revenge on whoever kicked us out on our practice day,” Tooru spoke up as he crumpled up his trash and stacked it onto his tray, and Hitoka’s brain scrambled from the comfort of her native language to having to translate English again. “Anyone wanna come?”

“No,” muttered Kei, who stopped glaring at Lev and went back to taking small bites of his food.

“Still going over rules with Hitoka,” Tetsurou said.

“I’m not done with my food yet,” Lev managed through a mouthful of hamburger, holding up two more whole ones.

Hitoka couldn’t help but to stare. _Four hamburgers for one lunch. Is this why he’s so tall? How is he so skinny?_

Tooru sighed, massaging his temples. “I don’t understand your metabolism,” he said tiredly to Lev. “Don’t get anything more than that. We’ll be getting food at the Old Orchard Mall after school anyways.”

“Okay!” Lev smiled, holding out a thumbs up to the other boy.

Tooru just shook his head as he stood up, slinging his backpack over one shoulder, and turned to head out of the cafeteria for the gym with a kiss blown towards a table of girls behind them.

Tetsurou’s sharp grin returned, directed straight at Hitoka. “So, Hitoka, have you seen any people that you think are cute yet?”

“Ugh, this topic?” Kei set down his spoon. “I should’ve just gone with Tooru.”

“Calm down, Kei, calm down,” Tetsurou laughed. “It won’t be that bad. Well, Hitoka?”

Hitoka was sure red was suffusing her cheeks. The one time she had attempted to talk about crushes with Kenma, the conversation had died in five seconds flat. Kenma had had absolutely no interest in the subject and had opted instead to shove a bag of brown sugar _fugashi_ and a spare PSP into her hands. This was an extremely new experience for her.

“W-well,” Hitoka started hesitantly, “there’s this guy in my AP studio art class.”

“Who is it?” Lev shouted, nearly spitting out mashed-up burger onto Kei’s lap, who recoiled in disgust.

“An artist, and a cute artist at that?” Tetsurou whistled. “Nice, Hitoka. What’s his name?”

Hitoka blushed at the attention. “His name is Tadashi Yamaguchi.”

_Thud._

At the other end of the table, Kei stood up, a blank expression on his face. “I’m going to class.”

Tetsurou’s brows furrowed, and he reached out for the blonde. “Kei, wait—”

“It’s fine. I’m not going to say anything, I’m fine, I’m just going to go,” Kei said, voice still devoid of emotion, as he slapped away Tetsurou’s hand, picked up his tray and his backpack, and made his way towards the opposite end of the cafeteria from where Tooru had just left.

“Oh, no,” Lev moaned. “No, Hitoka. Oh, I’m so sorry.”

Hitoka felt her heart sink into her stomach. That wasn’t a good reaction by any means. Did they have bad history with Tadashi? Had her perception of Tadashi as a person been wrong? 

“What’s going on?” Hitoka asked nervously.

“You can’t like Tadashi Yamaguchi,” Tetsurou explained. “That’s Kei’s ex-best friend.”

“Yeah, they were friends since we were in elementary school,” added Lev. The energy from earlier had left his voice, and he was now chewing the remains of his last burger dejectedly, drooped over the table.

“And then they had a really big fight last year and Kei was devastated. He was such a mess,” Tetsurou interjected.

“Kei? A mess?” Hitoka couldn’t imagine the tall, composed blonde being anything but his haughty, sarcastic self.

Lev nodded fervently. “Yeah, he just shut himself off and skipped school for two weeks, and after he came back he didn’t talk to a single person until Tetsurou—”

“Okay, regardless,” interrupted Tetsurou, whose cheeks were unusually red, “ex-best friends are just off limits to friends. I mean, that’s just, like, the number one rule of the bro code.”

“Oh,” Hitoka said in a small voice. “So is me liking him really bad?”

Both Lev and Tetsurou looked sympathetic.

“It’s okay, we won’t tell Tooru,” comforted Lev as he wiped his hands on a napkin. Hitoka was struck by the sudden memory of when Sugawara, with an identical expression and tone of voice, had said practically the same thing to Kenma, who had “accidentally” dropped Daichi’s laptop on the head of one Suguru Daishou. In the end, Sugawara had told Daichi anyways.

The bell signaling the end of lunch rang, and Hitoka screwed the cap of her Thermos back on, stowing it into her backpack.

“Well, we’ll see you after school, Lev,” drawled Tetsurou, sweeping his trash into his tray and picking it up.

“Bye, Tetsurou! Bye, Hitoka!” Lev smiled, waving as he ducked away from the table and started jogging towards a short boy with light brown hair that Hitoka recognized to be Morisuke Yaku. Hitoka watched as Lev patted Morisuke on the head in greeting and got a fierce kick to the back of his knees in return.

“What a dumbass,” Tetsurou sighed deeply, then smoothly transitioned into speaking Japanese. “Okay, Hitoka. You ready for history?”

“I guess so,” answered Hitoka, straightening out her backpack straps as she fell into step besides the lanky boy. “We have a quiz next Monday, don’t we?”

“End me,” moaned Tetsurou as he tossed his tray onto one of the trash trolleys at the cafeteria exit. “At least Hajime’s in our class—he’s saved me from failing history for the past two years. I’m good at all my other classes, but I really just hate history.”

“I think history is interesting,” Hitoka countered with a frown, then paused. “Who’s Hajime?”

Kuroo blinked. “Oh, right. Forgot for a second that—”

Hitoka stopped besides her frozen friend. “Tetsurou? Are you okay?” she queried timidly, waving a hand in front of Tetsurou’s blank look.

She nearly shrieked when Tetsurou rounded on her, clasping both of her shoulders, a bright grin on his face. “Hitoka-kun. Hitoka-chan. Baby-chan. Please tell me you’re free tonight.”

“Uhh,” Hitoka hedged, scratching her cheek in confusion. _Baby-chan?_ “I should be? It’s not like I have anything to do besides homework. Aren’t we going to hang out with the group after school, though?”

“Yeah, but—do you have time after that? Or do you have to do homework after?” Tetsurou asked urgently.

“Oh, I mean,” Hitoka flailed, remembering that she’d promised Shouyou and Tobio to hang out together after she was done with the Crowns, “I have something else right after?”

Tetsurou threw his head back dramatically, emitting a high-pitched noise as if shrieking towards the heavens—in this case, towards the rectangular light fixtures on the ceiling—before reverting to a normal posture to meet her eyes. “Do you have time after that, then? If you have time I can also explain the whole thing that happened with Tadashi and Kei, and answer any questions you have about this whole…” he gestured in the air vaguely. “Thing.”

Hitoka perked up. Having some answers would be nice. “Well, I should be free tonight—after my thing—since I finished my homework yesterday.”

“Hah, baby’s so productive,” Tetsurou grinned, lightly bopping Hitoka’s nose. He turned and started walking again, winding one arm around Hitoka’s shoulders and leaning on her in an exaggerated friendly manner. “I’ll pick you up tonight, then.”

“For what?” asked Hitoka hesitantly.

For the first time, Tetsurou’s smile was almost just as scary as Tooru’s. “I have a brilliant, brilliant plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was the longest chapter so far, apparently, although it was also the shortest amount of time I've spent on writing a single chapter so far. Maybe it's because I spent so much of this week planning how the rest of this story goes ;). This really was such a fun chapter to write, though; I had a lot, a lot of fun with it. This story in general is just so fun to write.
> 
> Next Post Date: July 8


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Hitoka is invited to join a club, deals with an identity crisis during a car ride, eats Japanese food at an American mall, and witnesses a mean prank call.
> 
> Possible trigger warning for a very small mention of possible homophobia/transphobia and someone essentially getting "outed" to their parents as a prank?? It's a very small mention but better safe than sorry.

The best part about taking AP Physics, Hitoka decided, was that the teacher assigned permanent seats for the whole year. So she had now been assigned to sit next to Tadashi Yamaguchi for an entire year.

Hitoka could already foresee it. The last period of the day would always be her favorite, from now on. Sitting with Tadashi was, if she ignored her racing heartbeat, the most soothing thing that she had ever experienced, with his sweet smiles and calm voice and quiet advice.

While they had been working together on the problem sets that Mr. Shimada had assigned, Hitoka had truly felt peace. Everything would be okay. Everything was fine. And even if she wasn’t allowed to like Tadashi, she was still allowed to look at him. And think about him. And talk to—

“Hitoka? You okay?”

Hitoka jumped, realizing that the classroom was slowly emptying and that Tadashi had said goodbye to her already and left a good two minutes ago. She stood up, hooking her backpack over her shoulder as she flushed, and turned with a smile to Keiji. “Yeah, I’m okay. I was just thinking.”

“Understandable,” said Keiji, holding the door open for her as they left their physics classroom. “Missing home?”

“Not really,” Hitoka admitted. “I don’t really miss the people at my old school. But, um, it is really chaotic here in comparison. And loud.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” said Keiji with a brief laugh. “And you happened to befriend possibly the most disastrous group on campus. That’s quite the luck.”

“Disastrous?” Hitoka squeaked.

Lips quirking upwards, Keiji nodded. “Yeah, well, combining someone like Tooru with someone like Tetsurou is never a good idea for anyone who wants to keep their sanity. Add in Lev and Kei, and sanity just goes out the window.”

“You’re probably right,” muttered Hitoka, the peaceful feeling that had come from her last class finally fading as her mind turned to thoughts of her new group of friends. Not for the first time, she tugged at her pink polo shirt, feeling self-conscious at how bright it was and at the thought of how much attention it must be attracting. Why on earth would they wear pink, of all colors?

Keiji chuckled at Hitoka’s now-disgruntled expression. “Anyways, I was thinking, since we’re in a lot of classes together despite you being new, you’re probably pretty advanced in comparison to most kids here, right? At least, you had good grades back home?”

“Well, yeah,” Hitoka replied with a modest shrug. “I was in the top twenty of my class, actually.”

“Oh, that’s impressive,” Keiji commented with an appreciative look. “I think you should try out for Academic Team.”

“O-oh?”

“Yeah, I think you’d be a good addition to the team,” mused Keiji as he stopped next to Hitoka, who had ducked down to tie her shoe. “We’ve got several people who specialize in one thing or another, but we need a couple more members that are better with, well, calculation-based stuff.”

“O-oh.” Hitoka nodded slowly as she stood up. “Would people on the team be okay with it?”

Another smile flitted across Keiji’s face. “I’m the captain of the team, actually. We normally do pretty well at tournaments, but we lose a lot of points in the calculation rounds because most of our members are there for the trivia.”

“Oh,” Hitoka repeated, mentally shaking herself as she stepped out of the main building of the school after Keiji. _Stop responding the same way. It sounds dumb._ “Um, who else is on the team?”

“Our vice captain, Hajime Iwaizumi—he’s the guy Tetsurou wouldn’t stop bothering during our history class earlier today—is a total history buff and is also really good when it comes to geography and stuff relating to medicine,” Keiji started, counting off with his fingers as they walked. “Ryuunosuke Tanaka knows everything that has to do with sports, while his best friend Yuu Nishinoya has endless knowledge when it comes to pop culture. Koutarou—from our homeroom—has a lot of random knowledge, especially about animals, and Chikara Ennoshita is our resident literature genius. Kiyoko Shimizu is a jack of all trades but specializes mostly in music, and for art history, we’ve got Ta—”

“Hitoka!”

Both Hitoka and Keiji turned to see Tetsurou jogging down the sidewalk towards them, the loose pink shirt he was wearing the first thing they both noticed. Keiji made a small exasperated noise, while Hitoka grinned upwards and waved to him.

Tetsurou grinned back as he stepped up to the two of them. “Why hello, Keiji. Where’s Kouta-bro?”

“Football practice,” Keiji said blandly. “Don’t you have volleyball?”

“Not today, the basketball team stole our gym. You should come back to practice, by the way, we need a reserve setter,” yawned Tetsurou, stretching his arms. “Anyways, I just need to grab Hitoka—the group’s hanging out, so.”

A car horn sounded behind them, and they turned as a silver Audi convertible stopped in the middle of the road. In the driver’s seat sat Tooru, the pink of his denim jacket casting a rosy glow on the parts of his face not concealed by a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses, while Lev leaned out of the back to wave at them with a pink sweater paw, and Kei looked to be asleep at the other end of the backseat.

“Get in, babes,” shouted Tooru. “We’re going shopping.”

Tetsurou jerked a thumb towards the car, smirking at Keiji. “See?”

“Alright, go,” Keiji deadpanned towards Tetsurou, then sent a small smile towards Hitoka. “See you tomorrow, then, Hitoka. Think it over.”

Hitoka beamed, holding out a thumbs up. “I will! See you tomorrow!”

Keiji’s smile widened, and then he turned to continue walking, raising a hand in farewell.

“Let’s go,” Tetsurou said cheerfully, grabbing Hitoka by the wrist to tug her towards the car. “Where do you want to sit?”

“I’ll sit in the back,” Hitoka offered as Lev opened the door on his side and helped her climb over him and into the open seat in the middle with a smile. All four of them were much taller than her—she couldn’t imagine forcing any of them to sit in the middle of the backseat.

“Thanks, Hitoka,” drawled Tetsurou as he circled around the car to the other side, sliding into the shotgun seat.

“You have enough room?” Tooru asked, swiveling around to check on her. “Your hair’s cute like this, by the way. I have faith that we’ll be able to give you a glow up.”

Hitoka grinned, half out of sincerity and half out of confusion, and tugged shyly at the hem of her skirt. “Ah, thanks. And yeah, I have plenty of room.”

“Great!” Tooru cheered and pushed the sunglasses higher on the bridge of his nose, the car gliding forward as he stepped on the gas. “Let’s go, babes!”

* * *

As the wind tousled Tooru’s chocolate-dark hair and the September sun shone down on them in a way that cast a halo-like sheen around the boy laughing in the driver’s seat, Hitoka noted that if Tooru had been a girl, he could have passed for a living version of the Barbie dolls that she’d played with as a child. Even as a boy, he was the most glamorous person she’d ever seen.

Hitoka wondered how it felt to be someone like Tooru, someone so stunning and confident and captivating that heads turned, jaws dropped, and boys and girls alike whispered, both in the hallways at North Shore and in the streets of Evanston. It was something she’d never experienced, something she’d never even wanted to experience before—back in Miyagi, she’d always strived to fit in with all the others, never wanting any attention because that was _scary_ —but now, looking at Tooru as he threw back his head to let out a bright laugh, she imagined being someone like him.

Would that make her life happier? Would that make _her_ happier? Hitoka didn’t know. But for the first time, she felt that she could relate, even the slightest bit, to the girls in her school in Japan, the ones who caked on makeup and spoke loudly and yearned for attention from anyone they could get it from.

“We’re here!”

Hitoka shook herself out of her daze, and followed Lev out of back door, joining him and Tooru in laughing at Tetsurou as he poked at Kei’s face to wake him up. By the time Kei was up and out of the car, straightening out the collar of his white shirt that peeked out over the top of his pink blazer, and Tetsurou had herded him, Hitoka, and Lev out of the parking lot, Tooru had already gotten drinks for all five of them and was waiting outside the cafe by the entrance of the mall, complaining loudly in disbelief that “it’s the third day of school, Kei, I don’t understand how you can be this tired already.”

“I’m tired from having to deal with Tetsurou’s bullshit,” Kei deadpanned, pushing up his glasses and nodding his thanks to Tooru as he was handed a cup of coffee.

“Wow, Tsukki, that’s quite hurtful,” Tetsurou chirped brightly, no sign at all of any hurt or offense on his face as he took a long sip from his own cup.

“Your iced tea, baby.”

Hitoka looked up to a smiling Tooru, and took the cup gratefully. “Thanks, Tooru.”

“So how do you like North Shore?” queried Lev, licking his lips clean of whipped cream as the five sauntered down the entry hall of the Old Orchard Mall.

Having been asked this question more times than she’d like to answer it in the past three days, Hitoka shrugged. “It’s good. I think I’m joining Academic Team.”

“No, no, don’t do that,” groaned Tetsurou. “You cannot do that. That is social suicide.”

“Academic Team is mostly just arrogant, lowlife kids who think they’re smart just because they know some random facts that don’t actually matter unless you’re in some trivia crack group,” Tooru said savagely, a strange expression on his face. Hitoka blinked, and it was gone, replaced by a smug smile. “Damn, you are so lucky you have us to guide you.”

Tooru’s description of the Academic Team didn’t match at all with what she thought of Keiji, who she was becoming fast friends with, or Noya and Tanaka, who had introduced themselves to her that morning before homeroom started, or even Hajime Iwaizumi from their history class, who she’d only talked to for a couple minutes but had seemed really nice and down to earth.

Still reeling, Hitoka only managed a half nod and a hesitant smile of thanks, but Tooru had already moved on, pointing at a Japanese restaurant right next to them. “Oh, let’s eat here! Hey, Hitoka, let us know if you think the food tastes even remotely close to authentic, yeah?”

“Sure,” said Hitoka as she followed them into the restaurant, watching as Tooru finished his drink in one gulp, tossing the cup into a trash can, and Tetsurou leaned against the counter to strike up a conversation with the blushing hostess.

“So after we eat, let’s get you some new clothes, yeah? I’m pretty good with putting outfits together,” Lev suggested. At the others’ looks, he shrugged. “What? I have a sister. You guys know her, she’s in your linear algebra class, Kei.”

“Yeah, I know her,” Kei muttered and threw his empty cup in the trash can as well.

 _They drink so fast,_ Hitoka marveled. She was barely a fourth of the way into her own iced tea.

“Can we stop at the electronics store? I need new headphones.”

“I need some new skincare stuff, so let’s do that, too,” Tooru added. “You probably use brands from back in Japan, Hitoka, but you won’t be able to find them here, so we’ll show you some good substitutes.”

“Um, I’ve always just used soap and water,” Hitoka said awkwardly.

“Oh, baby, no, you’re going to ruin your skin,” groaned Tooru, grabbing Hitoka’s face and observing it. “Okay, it’s not too bad yet, but from now on, use real skincare products, okay?”

 _Mom always said those were unnecessary,_ Hitoka thought. Out loud, she just responded with a nod and a resigned “okay.”

“Right this way, please,” said a server, leading them to a booth in the back. “Any drinks?”

“Water all around, please,” said Tooru with a charming smile. “Ah, and we’re ready to order. We come here often.”

“Right, right.” The server hurried to pull out a pad of paper. 

“We’d like one miso ramen, one salmon bowl, a _zaru soba_ , one _gyu don_ , and…” Tooru trailed off, glancing at Hitoka. “What do you want, Hitoka?”

Scanning the menu frantically, Hitoka decided on the first thing that her eyes landed on. “Ah, the pork katsu looks good.”

“And a pork katsu,” Tooru finished, beaming brightly. “Thank you, Ms…?”

“Runa,” the server said with a blush, gesturing to her nametag. Distantly, Hitoka thought that if the server turned any redder, she’d be at risk of a fever. “We’ll have your food ready soon.”

“Um, I forgot to mention that I don’t have any money on me,” Hitoka said hesitantly as the server tripped over herself to hurry towards the kitchen. “So I’ll pay you guys back tomorrow?”

“No, this is our treat, baby,” Tooru cooed, ruffling her hair. “We’re gonna make you one of us. We switch off on who pays for coffee and drinks and small stuff, but most of the time, Tetsu pays for our stuff.”

“I like to waste my family’s dirty money,” said Tetsurou candidly, then he held up a slip of paper. “Well, anyways, I got the hostess’s number. So, baby, guess who gets free food today?”

Hitoka felt a bit lost, but she understood the general idea. “Um, we do?”

Tetsurou winked. “That’s right.”

Kei rolled his eyes, leaning back in his seat. “Don’t become like them, Hitoka. Bunch of freeloaders.”

“It’s not freeloading if we’re doing nothing to be offered free stuff,” Tetsurou sang.

Kei just sighed.

The food arrived soon after, and even Hitoka was almost done with her food—“it tastes really good,” she’d told the group—when Lev squeaked and dived behind Kei as if he were a human shield.

“Oh my god, there’s Morisuke!”

“Ooh, where?” Tetsurou leered, a mocking grin on his face as he poked his head out of the booth to look around.

Kei just sighed and nodded towards a pair of people who had just sat down at a booth on the other side of the restaurant. “There.”

“What’s he doing with Kentarou Kyoutani?” Lev whined, pointing at the angry-looking boy with short cropped blond hair sitting across from Morisuke, looking a bit less angry than he normally did.

“I heard a rumor that they were going on a date,” said Kei, tone still as bored as ever. He shook off Lev’s grasp. “Stop grabbing onto me, it’s annoying.”

“Sorry,” Lev apologized, letting go as he drooped.

“Wait,” Tooru scoffed, “Morisuke wouldn’t be going out with that Mad Dog, would he? He can’t do that to you. Hah, never thought that he’d be such a skeez.”

“I literally just said it was a rumor,” Kei said, voice a bit muffled by his face being planted against the table.

“Gimme your phone,” commanded Tooru, as if he hadn’t heard Kei’s comment.

Lev handed his phone to Tooru nervously. “Wait, y-you’re not gonna call him, right?”

Tooru snorted. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Lev shook his head. “No.”

Tetsurou reached over the table to pat Lev on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Tooru’s got a plan. Is it what I think it is?”

“Considering you’re _almost_ as awesome as me, I’d say yes,” Tooru said primly, dialing a number in the phone. “Yaku on South Boulevard?”

“The caller ID,” Lev panicked, tugging at Tooru’s denim sleeve.

“Not when you connect from information,” Tooru singsonged.

Someone picked up the phone from the other end. “Hello?”

“Hello, may I speak to Morisuke Yaku?” said Tooru, pitching his voice higher by a good two octaves. Hitoka nearly choked on her rice.

“He’s not home. Who’s calling?”

“Oh, this is Yui from Victoria’s Secret. We would just like to let Morisuke know that his, mmm, lingerie order is in, and if you could have him give us a call as soon as possible, that would be great,” Tooru bluffed, voice rising higher and higher in pitch as his monologue continued. “Oh, never mind, he just came in. Hope you have a great day!”

A thump could be heard from the other end of the call, and Tooru giggled viciously, hanging up. “He won’t be going out with anyone else.”

Hitoka could feel her eyes widen. That wasn’t just a mean prank call. That could actually hurt Morisuke if his parents were homophobic, or transphobic, or offended by cross-dressing in any way. In the back of her mind, she started mentally apologzing to Morisuke for being a part of this at all.

The rest of the group seemed to have different ideas, though. Tetsurou burst out laughing. The smile on his face was nasty. “Pfft. Okay, that was _so_ fetch.”

Kei just sighed again, but a small smirk played on his lips. “You’re both awful. Remind me why I chose you guys over—remind me why I still hang out with you guys.”

“You love us!” Tetsurou cheered, ruffling Kei’s hair only to have his hand slapped away again.

Lev, on the other hand, looked stricken with guilt. “But if that gets out then Morisuke’s going to be all alone! He’s going to get judged by everyone else—”

“C’mon, Lev,” Tetsurou smirked, leaning both elbows on the table. “Think about it. Yeah, everyone’s going to judge him, everyone’s going to gossip about him, and then you come in—”

“You’ll be his knight in shining armor,” interrupted Tooru.

“And you’ll defend him from everyone else, you’ll be the one that’s on his side even when everyone else is talking about him behind his back,” Tetsurou added.

“And thus, you sweep him off his feet with your honest and caring personality, you’ll be the only one to ask him out to the Spring Fling, he’ll of course say yes, and voila! You’ve scored the love of your life,” Tooru finished, flashing a victory sign at the gray-haired boy.

Lev looked a bit more hopeful. “Really?”

“Of course. And if it doesn’t get out, then nothing will change,” Tooru beamed, waving a hand dismissively. “But that’s not what you want, right? You want to get your man?”

Hitoka heard Lev mumble something under his breath that sounded like “just want him to be happy,” but then he grinned back at Tooru guilelessly and nodded enthusiastically.

Swallowing the last of her rice, Hitoka chanced one more look back at the booth where Morisuke and Kentarou had been sitting and her stomach instantly dropped. Morisuke had his phone held slightly away from his ear with a stoic expression. Kentarou was staring at him, shocked. Even with the conversations from all over the restaurant, it was quiet enough for the voice yelling from the other end of the phone to be just slightly audible.

Swallowing hard, Hitoka ripped her eyes away from the sight of Morisuke sitting as still as a stone and rapidly paling, only to meet the hard gaze of Kentarou Kyoutani, who held the stare for a couple moments before looking away, reaching across the table to take Morisuke’s hand.

 _I can’t watch this._ Hitoka spun around, forcing a smile to the others. “I’m done with my food. Thanks for waiting, guys.”

“Alright, let’s go get baby some new clothes,” said Tooru breezily, standing up. “Hey, Tetsu. Why don’t you pay for Kentarou and Morisuke’s meal? It might make Lev here feel a bit less guilty, hmm?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tetsurou said, swaggering towards the front counter. “Come with me, Kei.”

“Thanks, Tetsu,” said Lev, following the other two like a large, adorable puppy.

With the others gone, Tooru turned back to Hitoka and smiled, grasping her wrist to help her out of the booth. When Hitoka looked up at him, she realized that the sharp smile that had graced his face had softened into something much warmer and genuine. She wondered what it meant. “Come on, baby. Let’s go get you your glow-up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so aaaaaaaah. I had like five different starts to the chapter, and finally settled on this one. I actually had a lot more planned for this chapter, but the word count started getting way too long so I just cut it off where it ends currently? So yeah, that was fun. It was also a struggle making them as cruel as they were in this chapter--like yeah, it's totally something Regina George would do, but I can't even imagine canon!Trashkawa doing something like this or wise, secretly-boomer canon!Kuroo finding this funny. Aaaaaaah. Send help.
> 
> Next Post Date: July 15


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Hitoka enters the Oikawa mansion for the first time, finds a highly incriminating binder named the "Burn Book," gets adopted for being an adorable bean, and reports on her first spy mission.

The Oikawa house was one of the prettiest houses Hitoka had ever seen. It was large, grand, a typical Victorian-style mansion—paired with the collection of expensive sports cars parked in the driveway that looked more like the roundabout of a hotel, the suit-clad man that opened the front door for them, and the luxury items that came into view as soon as they stepped into the foyer, Hitoka decided that Tobio had been understating things when he claimed that Tooru’s family was filthy rich.

 _And look out for anything suspicious,_ Tobio had told her. _Anything that could count as proof of what an asshole he really is._

 _An awful person, not an asshole, Tobio,_ Shouyou had screeched. _Stop corrupting Hitoka!_

All Hitoka saw, though, was more and more proof of how rich Tooru was, and she eyed the large chandelier that dangled over their heads. _If that fell on me in an earthquake, would I die instantly?_

Shaking herself out of her muted fear, Hitoka spoke up. “Your house is really nice.”

“Mm, it is pretty nice, isn’t it?” Tooru said casually as he led them further into the house and into the kitchen. “Of course, that doesn’t really extend to the—”

“Tooru, you’re back!”

A small boy with short-cropped hair and an adorably determined expression barreled out of the living room and went straight for Tooru’s middle, nearly tipping them both over.

“Oof,” wheezed Tooru, detaching himself from the boy. “This is my nephew. Say hi to Takeru, guys.”

“Hi to Takeru, guys,” quipped Tetsurou.

Takeru didn’t pay any attention to the older Oikawa pretending to deck Tetsurou over the head with his backpack. Instead, he turned to Hitoka. “Are you Tooru’s girlfriend?”

Hitoka blinked in confusion. “N-no?”

“No, she’s not, she’s a new student and she’s my _friend_ , Takeru, you know what a friend—”

Takeru tilted his head to one side as if he hadn’t heard Tooru. “Huh. Well, that’s good, I guess. Don’t date him because he’s really lame.”

“Oh, okay,” Hitoka giggled, reaching out with one hand to pat Takeru’s head while Tooru gasped dramatically in the background. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“This is betrayal,” moaned Tooru while Tetsurou buried his face in his hands to muffle his laughter. Kei was squatting down to laugh into his knees, nearly knocking over a giggling Lev as he tipped backwards. “This is betrayal, and I can’t believe you’ve done this to me, Takeru.”

Takeru nodded at Hitoka, expression serious as he continued to ignore his uncle. “He’s a terrible boyfriend. He even asked _me_ for help because he said he didn’t know why his last—”

“Takeru!” Tooru yelped, skidding around Hitoka to grab his nephew and cover the boy’s mouth with one hand. “Shut up!”

Totally undeterred, Takeru pulled down Tooru’s hand and continued as if his uncle hadn’t tried to stop him. “He didn’t know why his last girlfriend dumped him.”

“Was that Mao or Eri?” Tetsurou addressed the boy.

“Mai, not Mao,” Takeru corrected with an eye roll. “Mao Aihara turned him down when he asked. Her and Kiyoko Shimizu. It bothers Tooru.”

Tooru pointed a finger at his nephew. “Takeru, I said to shut up! Or else!”

The boy blinked, looking disinterested. “Or else what?”

“Or else I’ll eat all of your candy and you won’t have any left!”

Not for the first time, Hitoka wondered what it was about Tooru that Tobio hated so much in the first place. Behind the glamourous mask that Tooru showed in public, his personality almost reminded her of a pouty child, loud and obnoxious and immature but almost in an endearing way.

Takeru crossed his arms. “Then I’ll tell on you to Dad. He’ll kick your butt for having too much sugar, and he’ll make you buy me more. Aren’t you on a diet for volleyball anyways?”

“I give up,” groaned Tooru, slumping. “Go play on the Xbox or something. I’m too tired to argue with you.”

“Fine, but you need to play with me later,” the eight-year-old all but ordered as he stomped back into the living room before pausing to point at Hitoka. “And don’t date Tooru! He’s boring!”

Tooru sighed, emitting a high whining noise as he rubbed his face with his hands. “This is what I get to deal with, guys. This.”

“Your nephew is a savage,” Lev said in a wistful voice.

“Must suck, having a nephew so much younger that’s smarter than you,” Tetsurou snickered, clapping Tooru on the back enthusiastically.

“You guys say this every time Takeru is here,” Kei noted.

“Kei, Hitoka, you two are my only friends now,” Tooru said dramatically, slinging one arm over each of them as he herded them up the stairs, the other two following close behind.

“Gross,” said Kei emotionlessly.

“Hah! Betrayal!” Tooru screeched, releasing Kei. Both arms wound around Hitoka as they reached the second floor, and he ruffled her hair. “You are my only friend now, Hitoka.”

“Haha,” Hitoka said weakly as Tooru pushed her into a large, spacious room decorated in a style contrasting the rest of the house. It still screamed “filthy rich” just from the furniture alone, but it felt much more like a real room than a museum. The walls were tacked with volleyball and alien movie posters in a weirdly aesthetic sequence, a grand four poster bed complete with sea foam green curtains took up the center of the room, a set of white beanbag chairs lay in front of a large television, a poster board of polaroids hung by a glass door to a balcony, and teak bookshelves lined an entire wall.

“Yeah, I used to be a bit of a nerd,” admitted Tooru when he noticed Hitoka taking in the countless titles on the bookshelves. “Astronomy is cool. And I used to really like mysteries.”

“I like it. I like your room,” said Hitoka, admiring the glow-in-the-dark star stickers scattered across the light teal ceiling. “It’s really pretty.”

“Aw, thanks,” cooed Tooru, who jumped onto his bed as soon as he had slipped his shoes off. “Hey Alexa, put on my Spotify mix.”

A peppy pop rock song began to play as Hitoka trailed across the room to observe the photo board that leaned against the wall directly above a neat, well-ordered desk. One photograph in particular caught her eye—a younger Tooru stood on a volleyball court with a bright, pure grin, one hand holding a volleyball and the other arm slung over a smiling Tobio Kageyama.

Hitoka felt her lips form a small frown. So they’d been friends once, but it was clear that Tobio hated Tooru now. Something must’ve happened to split them that badly, obviously. Whatever it had been had left Tobio enraged and vengeful, but if it had been that bad of a falling out, then why would there still be a picture of them together on Tooru’s photo board?

The photo below that one squeezed in too many people for her to be able to recognize them all, as the faces were far from the camera, but she recognized Tobio standing between the boy with turnip-shaped hair and the sleepy boy from the cafeteria, all three of them grinning at a boy who looked like Hajime from history class, and she recognized the orange mop that couldn’t have belonged to anyone but Shouyou, who was sitting between someone who looked suspiciously like Keiji, a boy with light brown hair that somehow reminded her of a cream puff, and an oddly clear Tadashi, who was tugging on the arm of a blond with glasses that must’ve been Kei.

 _Huh._ So both Shouyou and Tadashi had once been friends with this group. Not just Tobio and Kei, respectively, but the entire group—in the adjacent photo, Tooru had thrown his head back, seemingly laughing so hard at something that Tetsurou was saying that he was barely able to balance by clinging to Tadashi, who was talking to Tobio animatedly while Shouyou was asleep on Lev’s lap—and she wondered why neither Lev or Tetsurou had mentioned it yesterday when Tadashi had come up in their conversation, only describing him as Kei’s childhood best friend.

All this, and still no proof of Tooru being an awful person.

“Hitoka, do you know who sings this?”

She startled, turning back to the others as she cocked her head to the side, listening to the song that had just come on. “Um, it sounds like Panic! at the Disco.”

“Oh, you’re right!” Tooru cheered. “You like them? Do a lot of people listen to them in Japan?”

“Ah, some people do,” Hitoka explained awkwardly. “My mom always liked to listen to American music, so I’m a bit more familiar with it than most people. And I like songs that I can sing, so.”

Tooru grinned. “We have to compare music tastes sometime, Hitoka, finally I’ll have someone who doesn’t judge me for liking—”

“Oh my gosh, I remember this!” Lev sighed as he wiggled a thick, bright red binder with BURN BOOK printed on the front in Sharpie from its place behind the large television sitting above the electric fireplace.

“Oh, that,” scoffed Tooru, his grin sharpening. At the sight, Hitoka shifted nervously. From what she’d seen so far, that smile never bode well. “Might need to update again soon. The drama starts when school starts.”

“It wouldn’t be high school if it weren’t full of drama,” drawled Tetsurou.

“Come check it out, Hitoka,” Lev suggested, waving her over. “It’s our Burn Book. We’ve got blackmail on every student in our grade, alphabetical order by last name.”

“It’s pretty nifty,” Tetsurou added, steering her towards Lev and Kei, who examined the binder with a bored expression.

Hitoka fidgeted with her hands as she glanced over the pages that Lev was showing her. _Shouyou Hinata_ was printed across the top, and underneath was what she guessed was the blackmail— _Shouyou’s younger sister is friends with Takeru? That’s pretty innocent blackmail. This can probably classify as proof of Tooru being an awful person, but it’s not that bad._

“Look through it if you want,” said Lev, dropping it into her hands. “Obviously all of this stays between us, though. It would be pretty bad if any of this, you know, got out.”

Hitoka nodded, flipping several pages ahead, and instantly took back her words on the blackmail being innocent. _Isumi Sakashima—he started a cheating ring that involved forty seven people. Kousuke Sakunami—he helped his bullies steal alcohol from his parents’ convenience store. Taiga Sakurai—his parents are on the school board and are embezzling funds. Yamato Sarukui—he’s involved in the Sakashima-Numai cheating ring. Takehito Sasaya—he stole money from his part time job. Tendou Satori—he frequents clubs and bars despite being underage._

Hitoka was horrified. This was worse than she could ever have expected—a book of mean comments about people, sure, that might not have surprised her, with how petty the group was, aside from Lev. But a binder full of blackmail, and of things that could get people into real, possible even legal trouble—what had she gotten herself into?

“Why do you guys have this?” she squeaked out.

“Don’t worry, baby, it’s for a good reason,” Tooru said in a soothing tone, seeming to have picked up on Hitoka’s abject terror. “We don’t really use it anyways. It’s not like we just blackmail people for our own gain.”

“Yeah, it’s to help people,” explained Lev. “Like when high school started and there was one kid who got harassed a lot. We started collecting blackmail then, on the people who were harassing him, and we forced them to stop.”

“Poor kid, honestly,” Tetsurou sighed. “It’s a good thing we stepped in, the gossip was getting really bad.”

Kei sent Tetsurou a judgmental look. “The gossip started because of—”

“Anyways, Hitoka,” Tooru continued, “don’t worry too much about it. Everyone’s got secrets and all secrets come out eventually. Some people just know them a bit earlier than most. Like us.”

“O-oh. Yeah.” Hitoka winced, feeling a slight trickle of apprehension at the thought of them potentially finding out about her being here to spy on them for Shouyou and Tobio.

Tetsurou tapped her on the shoulder, leaning in to whisper in Japanese. “I’ll explain as much as I can later. You still on for tonight?”

“Yeah,” Hitoka whispered back, continuing to flip through the pages of the binder until she arrived near the end. Under the name _Tadashi Yamaguchi_ , there was nothing written except for the word “us” underlined twice. Beyond his entry were a few other people, none of whom Hitoka recognized, and she went back.

 _Huh. I didn’t see Tobio in this,_ Hitoka mused, flipping back to the “K” section.

Hitoka continued to flip through as she spoke up. “So everyone in the junior year is in this?”

Tooru fell back on his bed, yawning. “Oh, yeah. Everyone in our year besides us. We based the order of the entries off of the yearbook, so.”

“Oh,” said Hitoka, flipping through the pages again and making an effort not to read through the secrets in each entry. It felt like an invasion of privacy. _Yeah, Tobio isn’t in here. I wonder why._

“You done with it?” Tetsurou asked when he noticed Hitoka had closed the binder.

Hitoka nodded and placed the binder into his outstretched hand. “Yeah,” she said quietly, trying to shake off the discomfort that had settled over her ever since Lev had taken out the Burn Book. _Guess I’ve got my proof for Tobio._

Her eyes cut over to Lev, who had drifted off, staring into the mirror on Tooru’s cabinet. “Oh my god, my eyes look so weird today.”

“My jawline is nonexistent,” Tetsurou sighed, joining the gray-haired boy in front of the mirror.

“I swear this diet that Coach put us on is doing nothing for me, I feel like I’ve gotten fatter since we started,” Tooru drawled as he rolled off of his bed to join the other two.

Hitoka was familiar with girls at her old school being insecure about their own bodies. She remembered the groups of girls that would crowd in the bathrooms during lunch breaks to complain about their looks as a group. It surprised her that her new friends would do practically the same—Hitoka had always thought it was an activity exclusive to girls. After all, none of the boys at her school had ever expressed any insecurities about their looks, especially not out loud. But it seemed that she’d been wrong.

It made Hitoka sad, really. Even an ocean away, it seemed that the same problems and insecurities plagued the people around her, no matter who they were.

“I absolutely hate my bedhead,” griped Tetsurou, running a hand through his hair.

“I have literally no ass,” complained Tooru, turning around halfway to check over his shoulder.

“My legs are too long,” whined Lev, poking at a patch of stretch marks on his thigh.

When silence followed, the three of them turned to Hitoka and Kei, who were both situated well away from the mirror.

“I am not doing this,” Kei said flatly from his position in the beanbag chair, grabbing a book from the shelf that seemed to be about— _arson? Arsonists? Tooru really has an interesting collection._

“I don’t know,” Hitoka attempted with a stutter, “but I think all of you look really good.”

More silence was followed by four surprised looks directed towards her.

Hitoka shrugged awkwardly. “I mean, it’s true. Lev, a lot of girls I know say that they’d fall for you just because you’re so tall and because your hair color is really pretty. Tetsurou, a lot of the people in my English class say that your hair is well, sexy,” she blushed at this, “and that your eyes are super intense. For Kei, I mean, this girl in my art class was talking about how you’d be the perfect model because your body shape is just perfectly proportionate, and that your glasses make you look even cooler especially when you’re smirking. And Tooru…”

“Yeah?” said Tooru, his expression soft and reminiscent of something like a very emotional cousin of respect, for some reason.

“It’s like you’re glowing when you smile,” Hitoka finished.

More silence, and then Hitoka found herself wrapped in a hug from the chocolate-haired boy.

“My god, baby,” sniffled Tooru, voice muffled in her hair, “I'm going to just adopt you now.”

* * *

Tobio’s blue eyes sparkled with something that looked like excitement. “So. Proof?”

Hitoka paused, collecting her thoughts as she took a bite of her ice cream cone. “Well, they have this book they call the Burn Book—”

Shouyou nearly spat out his drink.

“—where they have blackmail on every kid in our grade,” finished Hitoka as she fished a napkin out of her pocket and handed it to Shouyou.

“I can’t believe they named it the Burn Book,” muttered Shouyou, wiping his mouth.

“What’s it say about us?” Tobio demanded as he lowered his curry bun.

“You’re not in it for some reason, Tobio,” Hitoka said truthfully, “but for Shouyou, apparently the only thing they have on you is that your sister is friends with Tooru’s nephew?”

“Yeah, Takeru’s a cute kid, he hangs out at our house sometimes,” said Shouyou through his pork bun. “That’s it? That’s pretty harmless blackmail.”

“Well, yeah, that’s what I thought, but for other people it has some illegal stuff,” Hitoka shrugged as she followed Shouyou and Tobio into a gazebo at the center of the park they were at. “Apparently we have four drug dealers in our grade. A lot of people are buying, especially stuff like Adderall. And there’s a cheating ring of like forty people.”

“Forty people?” Shouyou said incredulously.

“Something like that,” replied Hitoka, scratching her cheek uncomfortably. _This stays between us,_ Lev had said, but it wasn’t like Shouyou and Tobio would tell anyone else, right?

“Wow. That’s kind of disappointing, that so many people are involved in something like that,” sighed Shouyou as he crammed the rest of his pork bun into his mouth.

“I’m not in the book?” repeated Tobio, who hadn’t seemed to have followed their exchange.

“In the book? Yeah, you’re not,” said Hitoka, eyeing the taller boy nervously.

Tobio’s expression twisted into a hateful sneer. “Those _bitches_.”

Only somewhat hearing Shouyou’s indignant squawking at Tobio’s swearing, Hitoka tilted her head in confusion. Why was knowing that they didn’t have blackmail on him such a bad thing? She would’ve expected Tobio to feel relieved, at least, that they didn’t have blackmail on him.

“Hitoka, you have to steal that book,” Tobio hissed, lowering his voice as a couple of boys wearing the North Shore soccer uniform passed by the gazebo, glancing back at them once.

“I don’t steal,” Hitoka protested, shooting Tobio a wide-eyed look. “I can’t do that.”

Shouyou turned to Hitoka with a serious look. “Hitoka, there are two kinds of evil people. People who do evil stuff, and people who _see_ evil stuff being done and don’t try to stop it. Blackmail as severe as what you’re describing? You can’t trust people like the Crowns with something like that. You can’t trust _anyone_ with something like that. You’re the only one who can get rid of it.”

“I know, but…” Hitoka hesitated. “But they said they use it to help people.”

Tobio scoffed, finishing up his curry bun. “Somehow, I don’t believe that. How is blackmail any help to anyone?”

“I mean, Lev mentioned that they started collecting it in the first place to help this one kid who was getting harassed when they started high school, by threatening their bullies with the blackmail to make them stop,” explained Hitoka nervously.

“So that’s what they told Lev,” Shouyou muttered under his breath.

The furrow between Tobio’s eyebrows deepened further, before finally relaxing a bit. “Fine. We won’t force you to steal the book, but as long as you’re hanging out with the Crowns, you have to make sure they don’t use it for anything bad.”

“I can’t spy on them anymore,” Hitoka blurted. “I’m super out of my depth. It makes me feel guilty, and the whole thing’s just…weird.”

Shouyou grimaced. “Come on, Hitoka, you can’t just stop now. People like them, they need someone like you, to balance out their scheming with actual empathy.”

“What if they find out?” murmured Hitoka, curling her fingers together.

“They won’t find out,” Tobio said gruffly, a resolute but pleading glint in his eyes. “We won’t tell, you won’t tell, and we’re the only ones who know. Please, Hitoka. For your friends?”

 _Friends. Again._ Hitoka wondered why she was so helpless to that one plea. She also wondered to what extent she would go to appease her friends.

“Fine,” Hitoka agreed. But in the back of her mind, all she could think about was what Tooru had told her: _all secrets come out eventually. Some people just know them a bit earlier than most._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kiddos have, like, zero filter. As a (past) teacher's assistant for a bunch of sixth graders, it's absolutely hilarious. In other news: in the past week, I managed to convince my friend to watch Haikyuu. He is now hooked and I am very proud of myself.
> 
> Tbh, the "insecurities" part was kind of based off my own experiences. I befriended several guys in one of my classes sophomore year of high school, we started talking a lot outside of class, and for the first time I realized that a lot of guys are actually almost as insecure about their looks as most girls are. And it really is an issue that I've seen a lot of kids struggle with no matter who they are or where they live, whether they're from an affluent community in the U.S. or if they're from a small town in Asia or if they're exchange students from Europe. 
> 
> Now for a bit of me being a psychology nerd~ in Mean Girls canon, it's pretty telling about Cady's character that when faced with people that are being deprecating about themselves, she joins in on the self-deprecation. She tries to fit in, wants to fit in with her new friends, which she doesn't do very successfully at first, but over time she starts chameleon-ing and starts fitting more and more into the image that people want to see from one of the Plastics. A "less hot version" of Regina. When I replaced that line of "I have really bad breath in the morning?" with Yachi trying to make them feel better instead of trying to fit in, that's what I was trying to get at--that her first instinct isn't to try to copy the others, but to go with what she thinks is right--by complimenting all of them. It's very different from Cady, and it's also very different from how Yachi immediately acquiesces to whatever Kagehina ask of her when they mention that they're friends--and I'll get deeper into the psychology behind that later when her backstory comes out more. I'll just stop here before I spoil anything, but I guess it's fun that this chapter's got a lot, a lot of subtle (?) foreshadowing. Lots of fun to write.
> 
> Have a great week!
> 
> Next Post Date: July 22


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Hitoka learns a lot about Tetsurou, Tooru-and-Hajime, more about Tooru, the Burn Book, and Tetsurou.
> 
> Possible TW for short, very minor mentions of running away from home, mild homophobia, and bullies.

“So, baby, your house or mine?”

“That sounds really inappropriate, Tetsurou-san.” Hitoka huffed at the seductive tone that Tetsurou had taken on, crossing her arms self consciously as she rolled her eyes at Tetsurou’s smirk. “Your house, probably. My cousin and his boyfriend are really protective, so unless you want to spend an hour being interrogated…”

“Alright, get in the car, then,” said Tetsurou with a leer, returning to his normal, cool Japanese, and jutted his thumb at the passenger seat. Hitoka complied, circling around the bright red Mercedes to get in. “By the way, baby-chan, never do that if it’s anyone else telling you that. That’s dangerous and it’ll get you kidnapped.”

Pausing in the middle of buckling her seatbelt, Hitoka raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah, yeah, I sound like an old man,” grumbled Tetsurou, revving the engine. “Anyways. So you’re probably wondering what we’re doing, aren't ya?”

“Yeah,” Hitoka responded dutifully.

“Well, here’s the plan,” Tetsurou announced. “We are going to set up Tooru and Hajime.”

Hitoka blinked, tilting her head to one side. “Hajime knows Tooru?”

Tetsurou scoffed. “Yeah, they were childhood best friends, boyfriends for almost a year. And then Tooru screwed it all up by breaking up with him. Not because they fell out or anything, but because Tooru’s parents were trying to set him up with this rich girl from Michigan.”

“That…sucks,” Hitoka commented, unsure of what else to say.

Shrugging, Tetsurou stopped at the intersection, face illuminated by the red glow. “It’s just what happened. His parents are really conservative—super strict—and rich families, ya know? My parents tried to set me up with a girl, too, but I ran away, so.”

“You what?”

“Ran away from home.” Tetsurou flashed her a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “I live alone here. Kei comes over occasionally. My parents wire me money to try to bribe me into going back to Japan to take over the family business, but I like it here. Nobody knows my family’s past.”

“Was that what you meant about liking to waste your family’s dirty money?” Hitoka attempted, thinking about the comment earlier that day at the Japanese restaurant.

Tetsurou rolled his eyes as the light turned green. “Oh, that. Yeah, my parents scammed a lot of money out of a lot of people so I like to waste as much of it as I can on anything but myself.”

“Ah, I see,” Hitoka mumbled. That was something she couldn’t relate to, but she could see herself understanding it if she’d been in Tetsurou’s position.

“Anyways,” drawled Tetsurou, unlocking his phone and dropping it into Hitoka’s lap, “first off, order anything you want to eat. An apology for stealing you during the time you normally eat dinner with your family, I’m assuming.”

“O-oh, I’m—”

“If you don’t order something, I will order a bunch of fish,” Tetsurou interrupted, glancing at her. “Seriously, order whatever you want. Or you’re stuck eating seafood. Not that it’s a bad thing, docosahexaenoic acid is good for you.”

“I don’t know how to order though,” Hitoka mumbled.

Tetsurou frowned. “Huh, I forgot about that. Well, guess we’ll worry about food later, then, when I can actually focus on ordering real food for us. Second, how good of an actor are you?”

Hitoka’s mind flashed back to faking smiles at home for three years and deceiving her mom into thinking she actually had friends other than Kenma. “I’m a pretty good actor.”

“Well, that’s very convenient,” chirped Tetsurou as he shifted the car into reverse, backing onto a driveway, “because you’re going to get to act like you have no idea that we’re setting up the two.”

“So, what exactly is it that we’re doing?” Hitoka queried as she got out of the car and followed Tetsurou to the front door of the dark two-story house that he’d parked in front of.

“I,” Tetsurou started, struggling to insert the key, “am going to tell Tooru that you like Hajime.”

Hitoka’s eyes widened. “You’re—what?”

“Tooru’s a very jealous person,” said Tetsurou sagely, still struggling. “If he knows—sorry, thinks—that somebody else likes Hajime, he’s going to instantly mark his territory and boom, they’re back together.”

“That’s a terrible idea, what about when Tooru finds out—”

“He’ll think it’s hilarious, trust me,” Tetsurou assured her, looking up from the keyhole to pat her on the shoulder. “And if Hajime doesn’t agree, I’ll be the one that gets murdered for having dragged poor innocent baby-chan along with my evil plans.”

Hitoka felt herself deflate. “But—”

“Got it,” Tetsurou whooped, pushing the door open. “Come on in, baby-chan.”

It looked more like her own house than Tooru’s, very comfortable and homey, displaying a much warmer color palette than the other boy’s house, but with more bare walls and noticeably less decorative items than the average home. One of the few things he did have up was a photo of the Crowns together—him, Tooru, Kei, and Lev—over the fireplace in the living room.

Tossing his bag at the armchair in front of the television right by it, Tetsurou smirked when it landed and turned towards what Hitoka assumed to be the kitchen. “Take a seat here. You want anything to drink?”

“Water is fine,” Hitoka smiled gratefully, sitting down on the dark red couch next to the armchair as she slipped off her backpack.

Tetsurou soon returned with two glasses of water and a plate of chips. “So, continuing earlier. I tell Tooru that you like Hajime, and, as the jealous trash he is, he will call you up to confirm. You will pretend that I promised not to tell Tooru about your crush on Hajime, and…well, we’ll figure it out as we go.”

“Is this really something we should be figuring out as we go?” Hitoka asked nervously, accepting the glass of water with a polite nod.

Tetsurou waved it off with a laugh, crunching on a handful of chips. “Yeah, it’ll totally be fine. We’ll figure it out, and if not you can just pretend you lost connection.”

Hitoka raised her eyebrows, feeling a bit judgmental as she did so. “I don’t think that excuse really works anymore.”

“It’s fine. I have faith in your acting skills, baby.”

“You’ve never seen me act—”

“Meh, I trust you. So, you ready? Be very quiet.” Without waiting for an answer, Tetsurou pulled out his phone and dialed the number quickly, then held the phone up to his ear, smirking at Hitoka’s panicked flailing for her own phone.

“Hey, Tooru,” Tetsurou greeted lazily in English, then paused to listen to whatever the other was saying on the other side. “Yeah, yeah. I got you.”

A longer pause, and then Tetsurou spoke again. “Right, so funny story. You know how you went to check the gym during lunch, right?”

This pause was oddly long but loud, and Hitoka looked up curiously. Tetsurou seemed to wince at the volume, holding the phone away from his ear, before returning to his earlier position. “Yeah, I know. Basketball kids suck. Anyways, like I was saying, we were asking baby about who she thinks is cute, right? So guess who she said.”

Another pause, and Tetsurou laughed loudly, startling Hitoka. “I’ve told you, Tooru, shrimpy’s gonna end up dating—well. But no, not the shrimp.”

“Then WHO?” was very clearly heard from the other end.

“Hajime Iwaizumi, duh,” Tetsurou drawled. “Why'd you think I called you?”

Total silence followed.

Tetsurou’s brows furrowed. “Hello? You still here, Tooru?”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE THINKS MY IWA-CHAN IS CUTE?” the other boy was obviously bellowing, and Tetsurou nearly dropped his phone, mouthing _my Iwa-chan_ with a wicked smile.

Tetsurou shook his head, taking on a calm but curious tone. “Are you saying he isn't? I mean, we told her that exes are off-limits, but—”

“HOW DOES SHE EVEN KNOW HIM?”

“The three of us are in the same history class.”

“WHAT IS THAT COINCIDENCE? AND ISN’T KEIJI AKAASHI ALSO IN YOUR CLASS? HE ALMOST BEAT ME FOR SPRING FLING KING LAST YEAR! WHY WOULD SHE NOTICE MY IWA-CHAN—”

“Jesus, Oikawa, calm your ass down,” Tetsurou snapped, the phone still a good six centimeters from his ear. “And we’re in the same homeroom class as Keiji and Bo, and someone made a comment about them being boyfriends the other day so she probably thinks they’re dating—”

“DO YOU HAVE HER NUMBER? I’M GOING TO CALL HER RIGHT NOW.”

Tetsurou sent Hitoka an exhausted look, as if to say, _See? I know him better than I would like to if I wanted to stay sane._

“Yeah, I’ve got her number, I’ll forward it to you,” sighed Tetsurou. “And will you stop yelling?”

The volume decreased, and Tetsurou moved the phone back next to his ear. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll text it now,” sniped Tetsurou, lowering the phone. _Go into the bathroom or something,_ he mouthed at Hitoka, pointing at a door near the stairs, as he let her type out her own phone number into a new text message to Tooru.

Hitoka gestured an OK sign with her fingers, picking up her phone and heading for the bathroom. She had barely just closed the door when it rang, and she answered it as soon as she’d lowered the toilet lid for a place to sit. “Hello?”

“Give it up, Hitoka. I know your secret,” Tooru drawled.

Even though it wasn’t actually her real secret, Hitoka still felt her heart skip a beat. “Oh, Tooru! Um, secret? What are you saying about?”

“Tetsu told me that you like Hajime Iwaizumi,” Tooru said accusingly before clearing his throat and switching into a bored drawl. “I mean, I don’t care. Do whatever you want.”

 _I highly doubt that,_ Hitoka mused to herself.

Tooru hadn’t finished, though. “But let me just tell you something about Hajime.”

“Yeah?” Hitoka responded, letting her voice quaver a bit.

“All he cares about is school, and his parents, and his friends, and being a trustworthy, principled person,” said Tooru derisively.

Hitoka felt genuinely confused at this. Was her English just bad? Was this just a difference in culture? Were those bad traits to have? She didn’t understand this at all. “Uh, is that bad…?”

“But if you like him, whatever. I mean, I could talk to him for you if you want,” Tooru interjected, tone slipping back into the fake-relaxed tone he adopted when his smiles were oily and condescending. The expression was almost visible in her mind’s eye.

Hitoka imagined what she might feel if she’d really been a girl who’d just been offered with help on her crush, and a small smile played on her lips. _It sounds more genuine that way, when your expressions match what you’re pretending to sound like._ “Really? Y-you would do that? I mean, nothing embarrassing though, right?”

“Oh, no, trust me, I know exactly how to play it,” Tooru crooned, and Hitoka almost shivered at how crafty it sounded. No wonder Tobio had said that Tooru was always super aggressive, even when he was pretending to be nice.

“But wait,” Tooru added, and the sly quality to his voice just increased. “Aren’t you _so_ mad at Tetsu for telling me?”

 _If I say yes, that’s out of character from how I normally am, so…_ “No, not really?”

“Because if you are, you can tell me,” said Tooru, and the concern in his voice almost sounded genuine. “It was a really bitchy thing for him to do.”

 _If I say it wasn’t, then I just look stupid. Time to rely on being a foreign transfer student?_ “Um, sorry, what does that mean?”

“It was a really mean thing for him to do,” Tooru amended, and the amusement in his voice did sound genuine this time.

“Oh, well, yeah, it was kind of mean, but,” Hitoka shrugged, thinking about how she’d feel if it were a real situation, “I’m not mad. I mean, I guess he just did it for the attention.”

“See, Tetsu? I told you she’s not mad at you!” Tooru cooed, and _oh. So this is the “bad personality” that Shouyou and Tobio were talking about. I can see it now._

Tetsurou gasped dramatically from the other line. “I can’t believe you think I did it for the attention!”

“Okay, love ya, see you tomorrow!” Tooru chirped, and Hitoka was left with a dial tone. _Huh._

* * *

It took a few minutes for Tetsurou to stop cackling about his brilliance, but once he’d finished, Tetsurou agreed to order a pizza for the two of them to share and plopped down on the sofa next to Hitoka.

“I’m such a genius,” preened Tetsurou as he flicked back his hair, handing a plate to Hitoka. “Anyways, so I promised you some answers this morning. Ask away, I guess.”

Hitoka chewed her lip, thinking through all the questions that had just run through her mind and decided on the one that had jumped out first. “So, uh, first off, why pink on Wednesdays?”

Tetsurou snorted, putting down his slice of pizza. “Small ways to rebel against Tooru’s parents. They told him that boys shouldn’t be feminine, so we decided to wear pink. Tooru told us he had at least four arguments with his parents on whether pink is feminine or not, and they ended up giving up. But they told him he’d forget about it in less than a week, so we made it tradition.”

“Oh, that’s…interesting,” Hitoka hedged as she started on her own slice. “Um, so I saw a picture on Tooru’s photo board when we were at his house earlier, and I’ve been wondering ever since, um…” _I can’t ask him about Tobio and Shouyou. If they’re not on good terms with Tooru, they’re probably not on good terms with Tetsurou either, and if I mention that I know them, that’s probably not a good idea, so—_

“Ah. You saw Tadashi in a couple of the pictures, didn’t you?” Tetsurou sighed, putting down his plate to stretch out his limbs.

“Yeah. Oh, and Keiji, too,” Hitoka added.

“Oh, yeah, both of them used to be part of our group,” said Tetsurou, waving one hand and grabbing a glass of water from the coffee table with the other. “Back in middle school. Ah, those were good times.”

Hitoka chewed on her pizza thoughtfully. “So what happened?”

“Well, Keiji had a disagreement with Tooru,” Tetsurou explained as he selected a second slice of pizza from the box. “For some context, we had some…internal conflict near the end of middle school. Tooru was fighting with Tobio Kageyama—you know, in our homeroom—and secrets got leaked, and, well, Keiji didn’t like that Tooru was spreading rumors about Tobio in revenge.

“That’s actually the kid who we were talking about earlier today—Tobio Kageyama is the reason why we started the Burn Book. Well, we first had the idea when some kids bullied Tadashi in middle school, but Tadashi didn’t want us to step in so we didn’t actually make it until high school started, because Tooru felt bad for destroying Tobio’s life, though he'll never admit it, so Tooru tried to fix it in a way that wouldn't alert anyone else to it being him, so that he could feel better about himself.”

Hitoka sighed. _That explains so much. That must be why Tobio hates Tooru, especially if he didn’t know that Tooru fixed things for him._ “Wh—what rumors?”

Tetsurou grimaced. “Unimportant, but they were pretty bad. It totally destroyed his reputation. Tobio wasn’t totally innocent either, but he got the worst of it. Keiji wasn’t that close with Tobio, but ever since he met Koutarou he’s hated people who start rumors about others, so he just stepped out of all the drama and left the group to start hanging out with Kou. Oh, right. They’re not dating, by the way. Kou’s still in the closet to the general public, so.”

Nodding slowly, Hitoka finished her slice of pizza. “What about Tadashi, then?”

“Well, with Tadashi, that was a bit more…complicated,” Tetsurou said with an eye roll. “That’s really more Kei’s story to tell, so I won’t give you all the details, but Tadashi was never that happy that he was in the group. He got along with all of us, but he didn’t like the popularity. So, he got into a fight with Tsukki in freshman year about how he didn’t like how Tooru was treating people just because he’s popular, he wanted them to leave the group together like Keiji and Kou did, and Kei didn’t want to. So Tadashi left on his own, and Kei was devastated.”

“So that’s why I can’t like him?” Hitoka asked sadly.

Tetsurou sighed. “I wish I could tell you it’s okay for you to like him, baby-chan, but until things between him and Kei get fixed, I don’t know. All I can tell you is that it’s why nobody in the group talks about Tadashi. He doesn’t like that he used to be one of us, so we respect that. It’s what Kei wants.”

“Oh,” said Hitoka. Her lips settled into a frown, thinking about the “blackmail” on Tadashi she’d seen earlier that day— _so that’s what “us” meant in that Burn Book. Well, I guess I count as one of the Crowns now, so I wonder if that will make Tadashi dislike me. Or not trust me, at least._

“Don’t worry, I don’t think Tadashi’s the type to dislike anyone because of who their friends are,” Tetsurou reassured, ruffling her hair. “Anyways, so why did you move to Japan in the first place?”

“Mom wanted me to experience living in the States, since she wants me to study abroad, and my cousin and his boyfriend happened to move here for their jobs,” explained Hitoka. After a moment of hesitation, and a glance at Tetsurou’s attentive gaze, she opened up for the first time since she had with Daichi and Sugawara. “And because I couldn’t handle Miyagi anymore.”

Tetsurou’s brows instantly furrowed. “What happened?”

Hitoka shrugged. “Just the normal, you know. Bullies, mean comments, being left out. Got betrayed by someone I thought was a friend. I had one really good friend, he still goes there, but he was always better at handling bullies than I was.”

“That’s not normal at all,” Tetsurou ground out before softening slightly. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. Things will be better here, yeah?”

Cracking a smile that felt more tiring than it probably looked, Hitoka put her acting skills to use. “I certainly hope so. And I’ve got you guys, so it’ll be okay.”

“Aw, baby,” sniffed Tetsurou as he opened his arms to her. “C’mere for a hug.”

 _Hanging out with Tetsurou really is nice,_ Hitoka decided as she let him envelope her in a hug. It was really nice, being able to talk to someone her age in a language she was comfortable with. Shouyou and Tobio, Keiji, and even the Crowns were all fun to hang out around, of course, but it was always just slightly harder to understand them, just a bit more tiring to have to mentally translate both whatever they were saying into Japanese and her response back to English.

Tetsurou's hugs were nice, too. His arms were strong, like Daichi’s, but his chest felt more like Sugawara’s. The way he was resting his chin on her head made her feel smaller and more protected, and the way he carded his fingers through her hair relaxed her.

A thought flitted into Hitoka’s mind. _I wonder what hugging Tadashi would feel like._ Then she remembered that Tadashi was off limits, and she couldn’t suppress a flinch.

“Don’t worry, baby, ‘m not hitting on you,” said Tetsurou in a muffled voice, seemingly having misinterpreted her tensing. “I’m into someone else.”

Hitoka giggled. “Okay, Tetsurou-san.”

The doorbell rang then, and with one last head pat, Tetsurou let go of her and slid off of the couch. “It’s probably Kei. I love his brother’s cooking, so he comes and drops off some food on pretty a regular basis.”

Swinging the door open, Tetsurou smirked broadly, waving jazz hands at a bored-looking Kei who held two large grocery-sized bags. “Hello, Tsuuu-kki!” he cheered in English.

“Don’t call me that,” grumbled Kei, who shoved past the black-haired boy into the living room and stopped short when he noticed Hitoka. “Oh, hey. What’re you doing here?”

“Ooh, ooh, you’re gonna love this—we were setting up Iwaoi,” Tetsurou enthused, taking the bags from Kei and pushing him towards the armchair with his elbow.

Kei rolled his eyes. “You know, Hitoka,” he drawled as he leaned back in the armchair, “you seem like you have more sense than he does, so I doubt you actually agreed to this in the first place. So, you know, you don’t have to say yes to the insane plans this maniac comes up with.”

Hitoka laughed lightly. “I’ll definitely keep that in mind for the future, thanks!” she joked.

“Don’t abandon me, Hitoka!” Tetsurou complained as he reentered the living room. “Who else is gonna go along with all my genius plans?”

“Genius. Right,” scoffed Kei.

Tetsurou adopted an affronted look. “Hey, I set up Tooru and Hajime successfully, didn’t I?”

“One in a million of your stupid plans. And they haven’t gotten back together _yet_.”

“Nah, don’t deny it, Tsukki,” Tetsurou beamed, tone boastful. “I’m always this awesome.”

Both Hitoka and Kei shot him judgmental looks without saying anything.

Tetsurou deflated sulkily. “You don’t have to look at me like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't really know how to end it, so I just ended it there. And honestly, wow, my word count is just getting higher...and higher...and higher... :oo
> 
> I thought it'd be fun to go into a bit of backstory on sort of a surface level first, before later going into more detail for backstory on both ends--the Crowns' past from middle school through sophomore year as well as Hitoka's past in Miyagi--because why not? :)) Also, I love platonic affection so there's that~~
> 
> A happy late b-day to our one and only Trashkawa Tooru! And I'm still kind of in denial that the manga is over.
> 
> Thank you all for the support! I really didn't expect to get this many kudos, since this is technically my first multichapter fic on this site. It really motivates me to write and I love reading comments so much ^-^ so thank you guys so much! Have a great week!
> 
> Next Post Date: July 29-30 (next week's a bit busy for me so the update might come a day late or so, hopefully not though)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which we skip two months into the future, where Hitoka gets invited to a party, does the wrong homework assignment, and doesn't know what to do to help out her friends.
> 
> Possible TW for mentions of homophobia and being outed to parents.

The cold weather that was gradually overtaking Evanston was much colder than it was this time of year back in Japan, and Hitoka was not used to it. Most of the other kids that were also walking to school seemed to be used to it, however, continuing to bound around wearing merely long-sleeved shirts as normal.

Shivering in her padded jacket, Hitoka huddled down a bit further, hands sticking in her pockets, and buried the bottom half of her face into the scarf wrapped around her neck.

The good part of this was, Hitoka reflected, that this did mean that winter break was coming soon, and with it would come Kenma. It’d been months since she’d last seen her best friend, and she couldn’t wait to see him again and hopefully introduce Kenma to some of her new friends.

“Good morning, Hitoka!”

It had also been two months already since she’d first met him, but Hitoka’s heart still melted every time she merely heard Tadashi Yamaguchi’s voice. She paused and turned around to wait for him to catch up with her, and they fell into step beside each other.

Grinning up at the taller boy, she took one hand out of her pocket to wave at him enthusiastically. “Good morning, Tadashi!”

The two walked in silence for a few seconds, breathing out clouds of vapor into the cold October air, before both spoke at the same time.

“So my friend—”

“What did you—”

They both broke off, waiting for the other to continue in the awkward silence, before giggling slightly.

“You go first,” offered Hitoka, ducking her head in thanks to Tadashi when he held the door open for Hitoka to enter the bustling, noisy entrance hall.

“So my friend is holding a party at his house tomorrow to celebrate the end of the first quarter and for Halloween,” Tadashi started, maneuvering them both around a group of girls huddled around the trophy case. “Um, you wanna come?”

“Me?” Hitoka squeaked, feeling her face turn hot.

“A-ah, it’s totally fine if you don’t want to!” Tadashi said hurriedly, waving both hands at her. “I totally get it if it’s not your type of scene, or if your parents won’t let you, or if you just don’t want to because that’s totally okay but—”

“No, no, that sounds fun,” Hitoka interjected with a flail. “I-I’ll come! And I live with my cousin and his boyfriend, and they’ll be fine with it. It sounds fun.”

Tadashi’s beam made her feel like melting into a puddle. “That’s great!” he said excitedly, and took a slip of paper out of his pocket. “Um, here’s where it’s at. It’s at Koutarou Bokuto’s house, we’re friends from a club. And, um, it’s a costume party, so people get pretty into it.”

“Grool,” Hitoka said enthusiastically, then turned bright red when she realized what she’d said. “I meant to say cool and then I started to say great.” _Oh my god. That’s so embarrassing._

Smiling, Tadashi chuckled. “Right. Well, grool.”

Both of them laughed softly, although Hitoka could still feel her face burning.

Tadashi coughed. “Well, yeah, that’s it. Um, so what were you going to say?”

“So, uh,” Hitoka flailed, trying to remember what she’d been planning on saying, “what did you think of last night’s physics pre-lab?”

“Not too bad, I think, but I can see how it might get harder soon,” Tadashi said glumly.

“Really? You’re going to have to help me, then,” sighed Hitoka with a sad droop. “It took me three hours.”

“Three _hours_?”

Hitoka nodded, a frown on her face. “Yeah. I don’t look forward to rotation and torque at all.”

Tadashi cocked his head to the side. “Rotation and torque?”

“Wasn’t…wasn’t that the pre-lab?” Hitoka asked. “The one that was five pages?”

“No?” Tadashi gave Hitoka a confused look. “Wasn’t it only two? And wait, aren’t we working on circular motion? At least, I was studying with a friend and he said it was…?”

Somewhere far away, Hitoka heard people swearing at her when she stopped short in the middle of the hallway. _Oh, no. Circular motion isn’t the same thing as rotational motion._

“Hitoka? Hitoka! What’s wrong?”

“I did the rotational motion pre-lab, not the one for circular motion,” Hitoka whispered in horror. “No wonder it took me so long—”

“Oh _no_ ,” Tadashi gasped. Then he opened his bag, fumbling through his binder. “Here, do you want to take a look at mine? You can probably get it done by class but—”

“I didn’t do my homework,” Hitoka managed, brain still frozen in panic. “This has never happened before.”

“Hey, hey, calm down.” Tadashi dropped his bag to attempt to soothe her, placing both hands on her shoulders. “You can just take a look at mine now so it doesn’t take as long—but I mean, you should be fine either way, it’s two pages, it shouldn’t be too bad, and hey, even if you don’t get it done, Shimada is nice, and it’s just a pre-lab so it’ll be graded with the actual lab and you can—”

“Sorry, Tadashi,” blurted Hitoka, swinging her backpack over both her shoulders and speedwalking off. “I’m going to go to the library to print out the pre-lab before homeroom, I can’t just _not_ finish it, so just—see you in class.”

“You got this!” Tadashi called after her, voice still worried but encouraging.

Hitoka looked back, and felt her heart melt yet again even through the haze of her panic, just at the sight of the boy waving after her with a kind smile.

Hitoka waved back, and then she was rushing to the library.

* * *

“Oooh, baby-chan got invited to a party?” drawled Tetsurou as he steered Hitoka towards the cafeteria.

“Yeah,” Hitoka mumbled, still scribbling at the sheet of paper that she’d pinned to her binder.

“Bo’s parties are always pretty fun,” Tetsurou remarked with a reminiscent sigh. “He never really tries to make it a huge deal, but a ton of people always show up because he’s so popular. Everybody loves him. Oh, yeah, it’ll be chaotic, too, lots of kids from other schools, so remember to be careful when you’re there, baby-chan.”

“Okay.”

“Oh, yeah, and most girls just dress like total sluts, because Halloween is pretty much the only time other girls won’t say anything about it,” commented Tetsurou almost thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t recommend that, though. It makes you seem easy and that’s not good. So don’t do that, baby. But don’t wear anything that looks too scary. It scares people. I mean, duh.”

“Mhm.”

“You’re really just giving me one word answers, are you, baby-chan?” sighed Tetsurou, pouting. “Oh, right, and don’t take any drinks that are already open. If you’re going to drink anything, make sure it’s sealed before you open it. Bo tries to keep things safe, but there are a couple of kids at every school that just like to cause trouble. And don’t drink the punch, people normally spike it with alcohol because Bo can’t keep watching it the whole night.”

Hitoka nodded and continued to scribble at the paper as best as she could as they turned a corner. “Mmh. Hey, Tetsurou-san—how do I define rotational inertia?”

“Were you listening to me at all, baby-chan?” Tetsurou complained, still pushing her along. “I’m here giving you valuable advice on how to handle parties, and you weren’t even listening?”

“So what’s rotational inertia?”

“Corrupting the innocent kid into doing homework last minute like you do, are you, Tetsurou?” snarked a voice from behind them in English.

Tetsurou grinned widely, slinging his free arm around Hajime Iwaizumi. “Ha! Ji! Me! How are you doing?”

Hajime pushed him away to instead peer over Hitoka’s shoulder. “Huh. You didn’t finish it, Hitoka?”

“No, I did the wrong lab,” Hitoka muttered, not even pausing at writing as they entered the cafeteria. “I didn’t realize that circular motion is different from rotational motion. So I did the pre-lab for rotational motion.”

“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” Hajime said, and he actually sounded sympathetic. “You can look at my lab if you want, you know.”

Hitoka shook her head. “No, you’ll get in trouble if we get caught. And I’m almost done, I have two problems left.”

“Wow, nice job,” said Hajime in amusement as he scanned her paper. “Oh, wait, you misread that question.”

Over the course of the last two months, Hitoka had, thanks to a pushy Tetsurou, gotten to know Hajime Iwaizumi very well. She could tell why Tooru would like a guy like him, someone who exuded quiet dominance effortlessly, someone who was mature enough to know that being emotionally intelligent didn’t make him weak, kind enough to lend a hand to anyone around him, self-confident enough to admit when he made mistakes, and an all-around funny, thoughtful, supportive guy.

Even with her crush on Tadashi, which was only growing as the year went on, Hitoka knew that by most standards, Hajime was _the_ perfect guy. After all, he was the ace of the school’s volleyball team, the soccer team’s captain, co-captain of Academic Team, and one of the top students in their year. She also knew that the closer she got with Hajime, the more surreptitious glares she’d get from Tooru.

 _I hope they get together soon,_ Hitoka thought vaguely as she corrected the answer that Hajime had just pointed out to her. Hajime and Tooru together were hilarious. Normally-unruffled Hajime was once provoked to the point of throwing an apple at the other boy, and then apologizing to the apple for contaminating it with trash. Normally-glamorous Tooru made weird faces and constantly whined like a little kid and it was almost like his mask of fake perfection completely fell away when Hajime was around.

“And you’re done. Congrats,” smirked Hajime, who ruffled Hitoka’s hair and turned to walk away. “See you in history, Hitoka.”

Hitoka patted her hair back into place in mild irritation as she sat down at the lunch table across from Tooru, whose expression flashed from a jealous stare to an easy grin.

“Hi, Tooru,” Hitoka greeted with a smile.

“Hey, baby,” drawled Tooru as he reached across the table to tap her on the forehead in greeting. “How did the calculus test go?”

“I don’t think it was too bad, but I was pretty worried about my physics homework not being done during it, so I don’t know, really,” Hitoka sighed, burying her face into her arms.

Tooru gasped dramatically. “Baby, how could you not finish your homework?”

“She did the wrong assignment,” Tetsurou chuckled. “Rotational motion instead of circular motion.”

This time, the head tap came from Kei. “You finished it though, right?”

“Yeah, I just finished it,” Hitoka mumbled, turning her head onto the side. The coolness of the table against her cheek was soothing. It was comfortable, and she was sleepy. _Huh._ The stress from not having finished her homework must have tired her out.

At that moment, Lev barreled in, pale with panic. “Guys, help me!” he hissed, diving for the empty seat next to Kei and jolting the table and startling Hitoka into sitting back up.

Crossing his arms, Kei glared. “You piss off Morisuke again?”

“No, worse,” Lev whispered with wide, teary eyes. “We—we screwed up. He knows about…about the beginning of the school year.”

Tetsurou’s brows furrowed.“Hmm?”

“The prank call that Tooru made when we were at that Japanese restaurant,” Lev blurted. “Remember?”

Tooru leaned in, voice low. “How did he find out in the first place? Nothing ever even got out.”

Lev shrugged, expression helpless. “He said that Kentarou Kyoutani saw us there. And that it kind of gave us away when their check was already paid for. And his parents had a really bad reaction.”

“Why bring it up now, though? It’s been two months,” Tetsurou added.

“I don’t _know_ ,” Lev choked out. “I must’ve just been too dumb to notice this whole time.”

“Is he still tutoring you?” Kei asked, a slight hint of concern in his voice for the first time.

Lev shrugged miserably. “He said he doesn’t want to see me ever again. I’ve never seen him so angry. He was so angry he wouldn’t even look at me.”

None of this made sense to Hitoka. “What happened?” she questioned.

Sniffling, Lev turned to her. “We were working on my English homework during our free period, and we were talking about the book I’m supposed to be reading, but somehow we started talking about romance and when I asked him if he was dating Kentarou he got super mad and said that he knew we’d been the ones behind it and that his parents kicked him out because of the call they got and that he hated me and then he left,” he babbled, tears finally spilling.

Tooru’s face had also gone white, and his eyes looked scarily emotionless. “Shit,” he muttered.

“I…I can try to talk to him tomorrow, we sit at the same table in art class,” Hitoka offered hesitantly.

“No, don’t,” said Tooru quietly, tone so unnaturally calm that Hitoka had to suppress a shudder. “He already hates us for doing it. Don’t make him hate you for trying to make excuses for us. It’s not something…well, shit.”

Hitoka felt her own brows furrow. “Hates us?”

Tooru laughed, but it was bitter. His eyes were distant, as if he were elsewhere. “I would hate us. It’s not something anyone should ever go through. Being outed involuntarily, prank or not, to their parents. Shit, I can’t believe that we…that I…”

“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” said Tetsurou firmly, slapping both Tooru and Lev over the heads. Lev hiccuped, wiping his tears, but it seemed to have no effect on Tooru.

“Sorry to say this, Lev, but you probably have no chance with him ever again,” Tooru commented, eyes still wandering. He didn’t seem to hear Lev let out a ragged sob. “Maybe if he ruins your life, he’ll be satisfied. Hmm. Hope that doesn’t happen to you, Lev, it wasn’t your idea. Wow, we’re a screwed up bunch, aren’t we?”

“Tooru, snap out of it,” Tetsurou hissed as he grabbed both of Tooru’s shoulders and shook him, to no response at all. “Well, crap. Wake up, Shittykawa!”

Tooru jerked at the insult, seeming to come back to the present. His eyes flickered from Lev, hunched over the table and crying quietly, to Kei, who had passed a bottle of water to the former, to the face of a panicked Tetsurou, before finally landing on Hitoka.

He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I-I'm going to go use the bathroom.”

Without another word, Tooru pushed back in his chair, stood, and trudged toward the door of the cafeteria. His hand came up once to swipe at his eyes, and then he rounded a corner and Hitoka couldn't see him anymore.

_What just happened?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What just happened? I'm not sure either. All I know is that I have a project due later today and, in true me fashion, I still have like a quarter of it to finish. And that I wrote the entirety of this chapter in about five hours over the course of the last two nights, so. Productive? Yes. Short? Definitely. Good? I don't know.
> 
> Next Post Date: August 5


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Hitoka goes to a party.

“Oh my god, it’s our baby’s first high school party, Daichi, hold me or I’m going to—”

“Sugawara-san,” sighed Hitoka. She had to make an effort not to palm her forehead and risk accidentally ruining her makeup at the sniffles coming from her cousin’s boyfriend.

“You look great,” commented Tetsurou with two thumbs-up, respectfully averting his gaze from the mess that was currently Koushi Sugawara and glancing over her cat costume, which Hitoka was pretty sure looked good on her but would still keep her warm in the cold weather.

Hitoka forced a smile as she grabbed a box of tissues and handed them to an exasperated Daichi. “Thanks, Tetsurou-san.”

“Tetsurou-san, huh?” Daichi said gruffly. “We may not be her parents, but you try anything with her and I can guarantee that I know very well how to get away with murder.”

“Daichi-san,” groaned Hitoka, whose inability to resist burying her face into her hands won over her worry for possibly smearing the cat whiskers drawn in eyeliner on her cheeks.

“Don’t worry, sir,” Tetsurou affirmed, lapsing into formal English with a polite smile. The formality contrasted the ragged but stylish pirate costume he was wearing. “We’re just friends. I’m just here to pick her up because I promised to be our group’s designated driver.”

Daichi raised his eyebrows, not seeming to totally believe him, although he returned the smile. “Right.”

“I’ll have Hitoka back by eleven at the latest,” Tetsurou promised, switching back to Japanese, tone still polite, “in one piece and sober and safe. Please don’t worry, Sawamura-san.”

“We’ll hold you to it,” Sugawara warned, and even with his puffy eyes, the smile he wore was threatening in a way Hitoka had never seen before.

This was heartwarming, but extremely embarrassing.

Tetsurou bowed. “Of course.”

After a few more moments of scrutiny, Daichi sighed and turned from Tetsurou to wrap Hitoka in a quick hug. “Alright, Hitoka, be safe.”

“And remember to have fun,” sniffled Sugawara with another watery grin.

“See you guys tonight,” Hitoka chirped, darting out of the front door before her cousin could embarrass her any further. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Tetsurou bowing to Daichi and Sugawara again, before jogging down the front steps to catch up with her.

“Your cousin is scary. And your cousin’s boyfriend kind of reminds me of Tooru, but nicer. Mostly,” Tetsurou remarked once he had caught up to her.

“Sugawara-san?” Hitoka could see where the comparison was coming from. “I guess so.”

“Yep,” said Tetsurou, opening the passenger door for Hitoka before circling around to get into the driver’s seat. “So are you going to go find lover boy while you’re at the party?”

“Lover boy as in Tadashi?” Hitoka shrugged. “Well, yeah, he did invite me to the party, it would be rude not to.”

“True, true,” Tetsurou agreed as he started up the car. “Careful not to let Tooru see you, though. He’s pretty volatile when he’s drunk and he’ll  _ definitely _ be drunk. Tipsy at the very least. Especially since I predict that he will get together with Hajime tonight—under the guise of talking to him for you, yeah?”

“You know Tooru really well,” commented Hitoka.

Tetsurou let out a tired sigh and glanced over from looking at the road as he paused at a stop sign. “Well, Tooru’s pretty easy to read if you’re smart enough, once you get to know him.”

Hitoka raised her eyebrows. She knew that was a lie.

“He doesn’t know how to take care of himself,” Tetsurou admitted. “That used to be Hajime’s job, but after their breakup, Tooru pushed him away and it pretty much became my job. Lev’s really perceptive but he’s too nice and kind of a pushover, and Kei isn’t good at handling people’s emotions, so I can’t subject either of them to that. So I’ve gotten used to him and his antics.”

“Huh,” murmured Hitoka.

Blowing out a breath, Tetsurou parked the car outside a brightly lit house thrumming with music, teenagers spilling in and out of the front door into the front yard and the garage. “Well, we’re here, so have fun while you can, Hitoka-chan. And remember to be saf—”

“I know, I know,” Hitoka groaned, opening the car door and slipping out. “Thanks for the ride,  _ onii-san _ .”

“Punk!” called Tetsurou from behind her with a laugh. “See you inside.”

Without turning around, Hitoka waved a thumbs up at him and headed up the front steps of the house, slipping in through the open front door.

Which was a mistake, Hitoka decided, when a cackling boy with side-swept brown hair slid down the stairs in a cardboard box, missing her legs by mere centimeters.

“Oh, sorry!” shouted the boy over the chaos that had overtaken the foyer, patting her on the back and steering her out of the way. “Watch out for the others—hey, Pantaloons! Your turn! Don’t hold up the  _ fucking _ line, Koganegawa!”

_ Pantaloons? _ Hitoka thought, ears ringing.

“This is bullying!” shouted back a ridiculously tall boy with a pout. His hair was dyed mostly blond, the middle of his fringe black and sticking straight up.

“Futakuchi! Don’t bully the new members!” yelled a scowling boy with sandy-blond hair from the living room.

“Your face!” yelled back Futakuchi.

“Are parties always like this?” Hitoka mumbled under her breath.

“Koutarou’s? Yeah, unfortunately,” responded a familiar voice.

“Keiji, hey,” greeted Hitoka, spinning around to wave at her friend.

Keiji smiled at her, eyes crinkling. “Hey. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“A-ah, yeah, Tadashi invited me,” Hitoka stuttered as a blush rose on her cheeks.

Keiji’s smile widened, and he jutted his thumb at a door beyond a group of people. “Last I saw him, he was in the kitchen helping Hajime and Kou set up snacks, but it might take a while to get there, with…”

Hitoka sighed when Keiji nodded at the throng of teenagers blocking the entire hallway to stare at the next person sliding down the stairs. “Yeah. Well, I’ll start trying to get over there,” she attempted, nodding a quick goodbye to Keiji as she began to step across the foyer.

“Hitoka, be careful—!”

Hitoka swore she could feel her soul leave her body when she turned and saw a boy with unruly black hair in a box headed  _ straight towards her _ , eyes widening in shock.

_ Oh my god. I’m going to die. _

A hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled Hitoka back from being mown down by the unruly-haired boy, who collided into the wall with a solid  _ thunk _ instead.

Futakuchi leaned over from the other side of the stairs. “Guys? I think Onagawa died!”

Dead silence.

“Hnngh,” Onagawa groaned.

“Just kidding, he’s not dead!” shouted Futakuchi, and sighs of relief rippled through the crowd.

“Nobody dies in my house!” shouted Koutarou, shoving his way through the mob of people gathered around the boy lying on the floor. “If you’re going to die, die outside! I don’t want any lawsuits! And seriously, would y’all  _ stop _ sliding down my stairs in boxes?”

“Sorry, bro,” chuckled Futakuchi, patting a grumpy Koutarou on the shoulder before raising his voice. “Alright, that’s all the sledding we get for tonight! You heard the boss!”

Koutarou huffed under his breath when a whole group of people made disappointed sounds and dispersed, rubbing his forehead. “Why is this even more chaotic than it was last year?”

“It’s always this chaotic, Koutarou, you just always get too drunk to remember,” said Keiji, drawing Koutarou’s attention to him for the first time.

Koutarou’s gold eyes instantly lit up. “Agggaaaaaaashiii! You came!”

A soft smile flashed on Keiji’s face. “Yeah, I came.”

“You good, sweetheart?”

Hitoka jumped, looking up to her rescuer to recognize the boy with dyed hair and a tongue piercing who had accosted her at lunch on her second day of school— _ Yuuji Terushima, wasn’t it? _

“Y-yeah, I’m okay,” Hitoka managed.  _ Oh, god. I hope he doesn’t ask for my number again, that was so awkward that time, where are my friends— _

“Take a couple deep breaths, yeah?” said Yuuji, breaking her out of her thoughts.

Slightly confused, Hitoka complied with a deep inhale.

Yuuji quirked his lips upwards. “New to all this?” he asked quietly, a soothing note to his voice that hadn’t been there the first time they’d met.

“Yeah, I’ve never been to a party like this,” admitted Hitoka, still a bit rigid, unsure of why he was being so nice.  _ Maybe he doesn’t remember me? I hope so. _

Nodding, Yuuji folded his arms. “At a big party like this, you gotta be super aware of your surroundings all the time—you never know when someone might throw a vase at your head, or when something goes wrong, or when stuff might get put in your drink, or the police show up, or something. So be careful.”

Hitoka blinked in confusion. “…Thanks?”

Another grin flickered across his face, then his eyes seemed to sharpen a bit. “Hey, you’re that girl from the cafeteria, aren’t you?”

Hitoka shrunk back.  _ Oh, no. Not this again— _

“Sorry about that,” Yuuji said dolefully, scratching the back of his neck. “My girlfriend had just dumped me, so I wasn’t really in a good state of mind. I would’ve apologized once I was back to normal, but I always saw you around that Tooru Oikawa afterwards, and we don’t get along.”

“O-oh,” Hitoka managed. “Um, it’s okay. Are you and you girlfriend okay now?”

Yuuji chuckled, red tinging his ears. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m really lucky she gave me a second chance.”

They lapsed into silence, and Hitoka fidgeted.

“I’ll let you go now, haha,” said Yuuji as he backed up with an awkward smile.

Hitoka nodded and gave him a sincere smile. “Thanks for helping me out.”

“Anytime, sweetheart. See you around,” Yuuji grinned, waving goodbye as he loped into the living room towards a pretty girl with short brown hair whose serious expression directed towards her red plastic cup melted once she saw him.

The hallway was now mostly clear, so Hitoka squeezed around a couple leaning against each other and into the kitchen that Keiji had pointed out earlier. Scanning her surroundings, she realized that it was pretty empty, compared to the rest of the house.

_ No Tadashi, _ she noted, a sigh escaping her. She also saw no sign of any of her friends—Tobio and Shouyou had told her they wouldn’t be here, but she knew that the rest of the Crowns were supposed to be at this party, so it was strange that she hadn’t seen any of them yet.

Actually, she hadn’t even seen Tetsurou since she’d entered the house.  _ Where is everyone? _

Hitoka sighed again. This was honestly kind of nice, though, being in a part of the house that was mostly empty—she was finally able to take a breather from the crowds that had been gathered in the living room and in the entrance hallway. There also seemed to be a table of snacks by the window, so she snagged a bag of potato chips. She was starting to feel hungry.

“Oh, hey. Hitoka Yachi, right?”

Hitoka startled at the soft voice, and turned to meet dark blue eyes and the prettiest girl she’d ever seen.  _ Kiyoko Shimizu. She’s in my English class. Um, she rejected Tooru. Wow, she’s so pretty. So, so pretty. The mole by her mouth is so sexy, too. Ah, I’m so nervous. _

“H-hi!” squeaked Hitoka, swallowing her potato chip. “Kiyoko Shimizu?”

Kiyoko smiled at her, and Hitoka could feel her heart flutter. “Yeah. I saw you looking around earlier. Are you trying to find someone?”

“Ah, yeah, I can’t find my friends,” Hitoka responded, sheepish. “I can’t seem to find them.”

“Oh, I saw Lev Haiba and Kei Tsukishima in the sitting room earlier,” said Kiyoko, pointing at a door on the other side of the kitchen.

“Thank you,” said Hitoka gratefully, blushing. “Um, I think I might take some time, though. It’s a bit much, all the people.”

Kiyoko nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I definitely understand. I’m just here because I know my friends won’t stay sober, so I need to drive them home.”

Hitoka giggled.

“You seem like a sweet girl, Hitoka,” said Kiyoko. “I’m going to give you some advice, okay? I’ll admit, I didn’t know what to think of you because you walked into our English class that first day of class on Tooru Oikawa’s arm—”

Hitoka nearly choked on the chip in her mouth. “Oh, no, no, we’re just friends,” she corrected hastily. “I got hit on by a boy right before that, and I mentioned that I was new, so I think he just wanted to make sure I’d make friends.”

Kiyoko raised her eyebrows, looking to be deep in thought. “Hmm,” she murmured. “Well, that’s good. I turned him down last year, and a lot of people called me arrogant because of it, so be careful with him, Hitoka.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Hitoka said sincerely, dipping her head in a small bow.

“You really are a very sweet girl, Hitoka,” smiled Kiyoko. “Well, I need to use the bathroom, so I’ll see you around, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Hitoka grinned up at the taller girl. “See you.”

Hitoka took her time finishing up her bag of chips, dusting off her hands once she was done. Dropping the empty bag into the trash can, she washed her hands in the sink and started for the door that Kiyoko had pointed to earlier.

“Hey, um…”

Hitoka turned around to see the boy with turnip-shaped hair from the photo on Tooru’s photo board squishing a red plastic cup between his hands, a devastated expression on his face. He was even taller than she’d expected—he seemed to be a good forty centimeters taller than her.

“Is he okay?” blurted the turnip-haired boy, tears pooling in his eyes.

Hitoka’s head tilted to the side in confusion. “Who?”

The turnip-haired boy swallowed. “T-To-Tobi—shit. Kageyama.”

“Kageyama?” squeaked Hitoka. She’d expected that he knew Tobio, from what it had seemed from the photo, but how did he know she knew Tobio?  _ I didn’t think anybody at school knew we were friends. The only time we’ve interacted at school was on that first day we met. _

“Sorry, I won’t bother you. Never mind,” he sniffled, turning away.

“Wait, wait,” Hitoka called and reached for his elbow. “How do you know I know Tobio?”

The boy shrugged, a couple tears spilling. “Saw you talking to him a couple times outside of school when we were at the park. Is he okay?”

_ So people saw us, _ Hitoka thought worriedly. They had to be more careful, then, otherwise it would get back to the Crowns and they’d question her and they would find out—

“Oh my god, Yuutarou Kindaichi, so this is where you’ve been.”

The sleepy-looking boy stopped short, looking from Hitoka to Yuutarou, then back. “Don’t tell me he asked you about Kageyama.”

“He did,” answered Hitoka. She shifted on her feet. This situation was just strange.

The sleepy boy sighed, massaging his temples, before turning to punch Yuutarou in the shoulder. “Dude, stop it.”

More tears spilled. “Why are you so  _ mean _ , Akira?” whined Yuutarou, lip jutting out.

Akira’s eye twitched as he glared at the taller boy. Both boys were silent for a moment, seeming to hold a conversation with their eyes, before Akira turned to Hitoka with a tired expression.

“So, uh. How is he doing?” he asked, voice quiet.

“He’s doing okay?” attempted Hitoka, still thoroughly confused.

“He has friends other than you?”

“It’s just me and Shouyou Hinata,” Hitoka hedged with a shrug.

Yuutarou burst into loud sobs and dove towards the glass sliding door to the backyard, disappearing into the dark.

“What the shit, honestly,” groaned Akira, a frustrated look in his eyes. Hitoka was pretty sure she’d seen it directed at Tooru by Tetsurou more times than she could count. “Sorry, he is such an emotional drunk. I’m going to go check on him. Sorry for taking up your time—”

“Wait, what’s going on?” Hitoka interrupted.

Grimacing, Akira shook his head. “Nothing, really. Just don’t tell Tobio. He’s had enough to deal with. Shouyou’s good for him. See you around.”

“Aren’t you in my art class?” Hitoka persisted. “You sit at the back table, right?”

Akira threw his hands in the air. “Fine. I’ll tell you next time we have a work period during class, okay?”

“Okay,” conceded Hitoka. She felt a bit sorry for stressing him out more. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, it’s not on you. I need to go check on Yuutarou before he does something stupid,” ground out Akira, throwing his own plastic cup at the sink with force. “See you.”

Hitoka gave him a small wave. “Bye.”

Nodding, he left through the door that Yuutarou had gone through mere moments before.

Hitoka took a deep breath and exhaled in exhaustion. This was all so confusing.

_ But I guess I’ll know soon, _ Hitoka told herself.  _ Now, let’s go find my friends. _

* * *

“You know who’s looking fine tonight?”

Hitoka exchanged tired looks with Kei, who had just returned from throwing out Lev’s previous cup of beer to find Tetsurou practically pinning Lev to the sofa while Hitoka grappled with the gray-haired boy for the punch bowl.

_ This really is not what I expected when I came to this party, _ Hitoka mused to herself. Too much had happened. Her head hurt. She just wanted to go straight back home, but she hadn’t even seen Tadashi yet.

Lev raised one hand to point across the sitting room at a short girl with curly light brown hair tied in pigtails, causing Hitoka to stumble back from the recoil and spill some of the punch on her skirt.

“Akane Yamamoto,” Lev declared with a drunken giggle, totally oblivious to his friends’ irritation.

“Okay, you did not just say that,” deadpanned Tetsurou with a raised eyebrow.

Lev hiccuped. “What? She’s cute.”

Kei shot an incredulous look at the drunk boy. “She’s dating your sister.”

“Oh, is she?” Lev slurred. He turned sad green eyes on Kei. “I still want Morisuke.”

“He’s not here,” ground out Kei, a vein bulging in his forehead.

“Where’s Morisuke?” whimpered Lev as he reached out to an annoyed Tetsurou.

“If I didn’t have to drive you back, Hitoka, I’d be smashed by now just to get away from this idiot’s whining,” Tetsurou grunted, ignoring Lev’s whining.

_ Yeah, I need a break. _ Hitoka whirled around.

“Where are you going?” called Tetsurou after her.

“Kitchen, I need some water,” Hitoka called back before letting the kitchen door swing shut behind her. Leaning her head against the door, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It was only nine thirty. She wasn’t expected home for another hour and a half.  _ I’m so tired. _

“Oh, hey, you made it!”

Hitoka’s fatigue vanished at the sound of Tadashi’s voice, and her eyes snapped open to see her crush dressed in garb that she vaguely recognized from a movie that Kenma had been obsessed with when they were younger.  _ It looks really good on him. _

“Tadashi! It’s good to see you,” Hitoka greeted with a beam. “Luke Skywalker?”

Tadashi grinned, blushing, and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Yeah. And you are?”

“A cat,” Hitoka answered, wishing that she’d chosen something less generic.

Tadashi’s grin widened. “A Hito-cat?”

Both of them snickered at the pun.

“Tonight’s really a bit crazier than it normally is, so I’m sorry if it’s a bit overwhelming,” said Tadashi apologetically. “If you want, we can step outside for a bit, get a bit of air.”

“I’d love—”

Hitoka’s voice died in her throat when she noticed a familiar chocolate-brownhair bobbing at the other end of the kitchen out of the corner of her eye.  _ Right. Tooru’s the only one who can’t know. I need to get back. _

Clearing her throat, Hitoka shook her head in regret. “I just came in to pick up some napkins for Lev,” she said quickly. “He got really drunk.”

Tadashi’s brows furrowed in concern. “Is Lev okay?” he questioned, and all of a sudden, the fact that Tadashi had once been friends with Lev was very apparent in his body language.

Hitoka let a wry smile twist her lips. “Yeah, he had a fight with Morisuke yesterday so he’s been pretty down the entirety of today.”

“So he’s still into Morisuke, huh,” chuckled Tadashi, a melancholy glint in his eyes. Hitoka blinked, and it was gone. “Well, don’t let me keep you. Maybe I’ll see you around later?”

Hoping it conveyed her appreciation for his thoughtfulness, Hitoka smiled up at him. “Hopefully.”

“Well, see you,” said Tadashi gently, the words almost lost in the shouting that came from the living room. “I’m going to go make sure nobody’s breaking anything, Kou has enough to deal with as it is.”

“Okay,” responded Hitoka with a wave. Once Tadashi had left, she scanned the room for Tooru, finding him on the verge of approaching Hajime. 

Hitoka swiped a few napkins and headed back through the door to the sitting room where she’d left her other friends. They were where she’d left them, with Lev now dozing off on one side of the couch with occasional whimpers of what sounded like apologies spilling from his lips, Kei dozing off on the other side of the couch with an expression that looked perpetually irritated even in sleep, and a tired-looking Tetsurou leaning against the mantel of the fireplace.

“Tooru found Hajime,” Hitoka whisper-shouted to Tetsurou over the thrum of electronic pop music.

“Let’s go eavesdrop,” smirked Tetsurou, instantly perking up and following her through the kitchen door. They entered the kitchen just as Tooru led Hajime into the backyard, and they exchanged looks.

“Closer?” Hitoka suggested.

“Yep,” Tetsurou agreed, and they made their way to the door to the backyard.

“Hitoka Yachi?” Hajime was saying. “Yeah, she’s cool.”

Illuminated only by the light through the kitchen windows, Tooru seemed to clench his jaw, letting silence reign between them before speaking again. “Well, be careful, because she has a huge crush on you.”

Hajime’s customary judgmental eyebrow raise was clear, even in the dim lighting. “Right.”

“Really. I’m serious, she told me,” insisted Tooru, and Hitoka could hear a slight trace of hurt in his voice. When Hajime remained unmoved, he continued on. “She tells everybody. It’s kind of cute, actua—”

“Cut the crap, Shittykawa,” Hajime intoned in a tired voice. “She’s my friend, and did you think a couple years of not talking would make me forget what you sound like when you lie?”

“I’m  _ not _ lying, Iwa-chan—”

“You’re a terrible liar, Tooru,” said Hajime gruffly, poking at the other boy’s forehead. “And seriously, what is this, you’re back to dressing up as Fox Mulder for Halloween?”

“Shut up,” whined Tooru with a petulant stamp of his foot. “You’re so mean, you leave me to watch X-Files by myself and now you make fun of me—”

Hajime crossed his arms, the playful look gone from his face. “You literally said not to come over to your house ever again when we broke up, Trashykawa.”

“I…” Tooru slumped and shot the other boy a pleading look. Hajime didn’t move. “I know. I’m sorry.”

A few moments of silence passed before there was any more sound from either of them.

“I’m sorry,” repeated Tooru, pressing his forehead into Hajime’s shoulder.

Hitoka had to raise a sleeve to stifle the reflexive  _ awww _ that threatened to bubble up when Hajime’s expression softened and he raised one hand to card through Tooru’s hair.

“I forgive you,” Hajime responded. His voice was gentler than Hitoka had ever heard it.

A wet sniffle came from the boy on his shoulder. “I miss you,” blurted Tooru as he raised his head to make eye contact with the shorter, spiky-haired boy. “I want you back.”

Hajime stared back at Tooru for a few moments, in which the normally-confident boy seemed to tremble in anticipation, before leaning forward to touch their lips together in a soft kiss.

The moment was broken when Tetsurou let out a laugh that sounded like a hyena call and began to slow clap. “And yes! They are back together!”

“Tetsurou Kuroo,” growled Hajime, breaking away from a bright red Tooru. “I will murder you.”

Tetsurou’s smile widened as if he hadn’t heard Hajime’s threat. “Congratulations, you two.”

“Tetsu, did you set us up?” Tooru questioned in a deceptively calm voice.

“I always knew the two of you would get back together,” continued Tetsurou with a wide smirk. Hitoka found it amusing, how much Tetsurou resembled the witty pirate captain from a movie she'd watched years ago. “Say hello to the only person nice enough to help me with—Hitoka? Hitoka, where are you going?”

“I’m turning around for deniability,” Hitoka chirped. “Sorry for being a part of this, Hajime.”

“Not your fault, Yachi,” replied Hajime, voice dark. “Kuroo, on the other hand…”

“Hitoka, you  _ tricked _ me!” wailed Tooru, skipping into the house where Hitoka faced the opposite end of the kitchen and throwing his arms around her. “How could you do this to me, baby.”

“Congratulations, Tooru,” Hitoka grinned.

Tooru clicked his tongue in mock disapproval, but the grin on his face was one of bright relief. He was the happiest she’d ever seen him. “Tsk, tsk. So I’m guessing that phone call was staged?”

Hitoka nodded. “I’m very sorry for all the trouble, Tooru.”

“It’s okay, baby,” Tooru said grandly, picking her up in a hug to spin her around. “Tetsu, on the other hand—”

“Oh, would you look at the time!” yelped Tetsurou as he dodged a swipe from Hajime.

“It’s barely ten,” Tooru commented dryly.

“Gotta be a responsible designated driver and take baby home! Farewell, good friends!” whooped Tetsurou, hopping into the house straight towards Hitoka.

“I’ve still got an hour,” said Hitoka in amusement.

“Shush, babe! We’re leaving now, so use protection, you lovebirds!” called Tetsurou as he ducked behind Hitoka to avoid a jab from Tooru.

Hajime entered the house and shut the door to the backyard behind him with a slam, expression dark. “Don’t think this is over, you—”

“Congratulations again!” Tetsurou hollered, making kissy faces as he grabbed Hitoka by the wrist and started to tow her towards the front of the house. “Gotta blast!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to go hibernate under a rock for a week, it's been a very long one. I had a lot of fun writing this, but it was really such a long chapter that it really was a pain to keep track of everything that was going on. Way too much happened. Hbrlgjlhrljsdghhf.
> 
> I've also been listening to way too many musicals the past week, so if anyone finds the reference to Hamilton, good for you (oh look, a DEH reference).
> 
> As for the Halloween costume choices: Yamaguchi is a definite INFP, as is Luke Skywalker; Yachi was a cat literally just because I wanted to make the pun; Kuroo's a pirate because both him and Jack Sparrow are (canonically) ENTPs; and Oikawa's the main character from X-Files because c'mon, aliens.
> 
> Next Post Date: August 12


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which not much happens, but Hitoka hangs out with her friends and fluff is wonderful.

“Did you really just kick yourself out of a party and drag us along?”

“Shush, Kei. You don’t even like partying and Lev’s had enough to drink, anyways,” sniped Tetsurou as he dropped Lev into the back seat of his Mercedes and got out of the way so that Hitoka could get in.

Kei huffed, sliding into the shotgun seat. “Yeah, yeah. So where are we going now?”

“Hey, Hitoka, think your cousin will let us crash at your place?” Tetsurou asked over his shoulder as he turned on the ignition.

“Probably?” Hitoka hedged.

Tetsurou grinned and shifted the gears of the car. “That’s where we’re going, then.”

“Cousin?” queried Kei.

“Yeah, I live with my cousin and his boyfriend,” explained Hitoka. “They’re expecting me back at eleven, so I still have an hour. You better come up with a good explanation, Tetsurou.”

Tetsurou laughed it off. “Yeah, yeah. I will.”

The car ride home was mostly quiet, broken only by Lev’s snoring and Tetsurou humming along to whichever song had started playing on the radio.

The dark sky glittered with stars, and Hitoka remembered staying up until six in the morning with Kenma the day before she’d left for Evanston, under the guise of stargazing together. They’d pointed out constellations and chatted for hours, finally falling asleep two hours before she’d be leaving for the airport.

_ I miss Kenma. _

It was nice here, of course. Here, she didn’t arrive at school with her head ducked to avoid bullies. She’d made friends in all her classes here, she’d been included in a group of friends for the first time. And even if it had been chaotic and draining, she’d been invited to a party—she’d never been to one before. All of these new experiences were amazing, and she was grateful to her friends, but it was just so different from what she’d known her whole life.

“This one’s your house, right, Hitoka?”

“The next one, Tetsurou, not this one,” corrected Hitoka hastily before Tetsurou could pull into her neighbor’s driveway.

“Nailed it,” Kei snickered.

“Shut up,” Tetsurou complained.

Getting Lev into the house took more time than the car ride itself had, and explaining to Daichi and Sugawara why there was a drunk boy asleep on their porch took even longer. By the time they’d settled in the living room and Lev had woken up to Daichi handing him a glass of water, Tetsurou had lost four rounds of Wii boxing to Hitoka and Kei had reluctantly let himself be adopted by Sugawara, who was mildly impressed by how well Kei could debate politics with him.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Tetsurou managed, laying on the carpet floor while gasping for breath. “How’s your head?”

“Hurts,” moaned Lev once he’d downed the glass of water in one gulp. “Thank you. Where are we?”

“My house,” chirped Hitoka from her spot in front of the television while she swung her remote towards the bowling pins on screen, pumping her fist in triumph when she got her second strike in a row. “Your turn, Tetsurou.”

Tetsurou stood up with a groan. “How are you so good at this?”

“It’s the only way we could get her and her best friend to do any exercise whatsoever,” Daichi offered helpfully from where he was sitting against the armrest of the couch.

“This is so unfair,” whined Tetsurou when he only managed to knock down half of the pins. “Which of these games haven’t you played, Hitoka?”

“I’ve played all of them, but Kenma always beat me at everything,” said Hitoka, giggling when Tetsurou gave her an incredulous look.

“How?” Tetsurou whispered in horror as Hitoka hit a third strike.

“All they used to do in their free time was play games,” Sugawara said wryly as he entered the living room with Kei behind him. “Oh, hey, you’re up. I’ll heat up some chicken soup for you, it helps with the nausea.”

“Thanks,” Lev managed, one arm over his eyes.

“Hey, is that the doorbell?” Kei remarked.

“I think so, I’ll go check,” Hitoka offered, dropping her Wii remote onto the coffee table.

“Quick, time to sabotage her,” Tetsurou said in a stage whisper.

“Resorting to cheating is sad,” called Hitoka over her shoulder with a giggle and threw open the door to find Tobio and Shouyou leaning against the wicker chairs on the porch.

“Hey, Hitoka. Can we come in?” asked Shouyou quietly.

Hitoka blinked. “Oh, hey, guys. What’re you doing here?”

“Something’s come up. About Tooru,” Shouyou ground out, eyes flashing. Behind him, Tobio just sighed, crossing his arms, and stared up at the lamp by the door.

“Hinata, it’s honestly not even—”

“No, Kageyama,” snapped Shouyou. “It’s not okay.”

“The others are at my house right now,” Hitoka said uncertainly. “They’re hanging out in the living room—they’ll probably be here for a while. Do you want to come in anyways?”

Putting a hand on the shorter boy’s shoulder, Tobio shook his head. “How about we talk before homeroom tomorrow, then? This is kind of bad.”

“Yeah, sure,” Hitoka assented with a slight frown. “But what is this about?”

Shouyou’s eyes took on an uncharacteristic glint of anger. “Tooru Oikawa is an evil dictator.” 

* * *

“You left the party pretty early last night,” commented Tadashi when Hitoka had caught up to him, the two of them walking together on the last block before they’d reach school.

“Yeah, we had to leave before Tetsurou got murdered,” Hitoka yawned, burying her face into the collar of her padded jacket. They’d stayed up way too late—Tetsurou had insisted on playing at least two rounds of every single game on the Wii sports until Sugawara had threatened to withhold snacks the next time they came over—and Hitoka was exhausted.

“Murdered?”

“We set up Hajime and Tooru,” explained Hitoka. “By tricking Tooru, of course, and then we listened in when they were making up. So Tetsurou is probably going to die today.”

Tadashi chuckled, and Hitoka’s heart fluttered at the sound of his gentle laugh. “I’m glad to hear they’re back together.”

“Mhm, they’re cute together,” Hitoka agreed, huddling further in her jacket. The cold air was helping her to wake up, but it was a bit too cold. Taking her hands out of her pockets, Hitoka blew on her fingers in an attempt to warm them up. “Ahh, it’s cold.”

A larger hand covered hers, and Hitoka had to blink a couple times to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. She glanced up at Tadashi, whose face was bright red, and felt her face heat up instantly a second later. They both looked away from each other and continued walking towards school, this time with their hands tangled together.

“Your hands are warm,” she managed, too embarrassed to speak any louder than a murmur.

“Thanks,” replied Tadashi, sounding equally bashful.

“Hitoka!” came a shout from behind them, and they instantly whipped their hands away. Hitoka felt a pang of disappointment at the loss of contact.

Hitoka turned to see Shouyou skipping up to her, dragging a sleepy Tobio behind him. “O-oh. Hey, guys,” she greeted. Shouyou seemed a lot more cheerful today, no sign of the dark anger that had been shining in his eyes the night before.

“Hey, guys,” greeted Tadashi in a friendly tone. “How’re you doing?”

“Tadashi! It’s been so long since we’ve talked!” Shouyou beamed, throwing his arms around the taller boy in a quick hug. “We’re doing great. Can we just steal Hitoka for a second?”

Tadashi’s lips quirked into a small pout, and it almost gave Hitoka heart failure at how adorable he looked. “Oh? I don’t want you to steal her.”

“We’ll return her later, she’s just the brains behind our mastermind plan,” reassured Shouyou.

Tadashi’s pout only deepened. “Can’t it wait for lunch or something?”

Hitoka reached up to tap Tadashi on the shoulder to get his attention. “I did promise them I’d talk to them about something important today before class. So I’ll see you later, if that’s okay?”

“Fine,” relented Tadashi, and the hand that had held hers a few minutes ago came up to ruffle her hair. “See you later, Hitoka.”

“Bye,” she said weakly as Tadashi turned away with a small smile.  _ My heart. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhh I had way more planned for this chapter in both sections, but I've been really really busy this week so I didn't even have time to start the chapter until yesterday night so I couldn't really work it in. Many apologies for the really short update, which could definitely have been longer but I didn't want to upload late, but I hope the Yamayachi fluff made up for it >_<
> 
> Next Post Date: August 19


	11. BEING BUSY SUCKS.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to give you guys a heads up that I've been really busy and haven't had enough time to work on the next chapter, so the update is going to be delayed a bit. For that, I am very sorry. In the meantime, have an outtake!

**SEPTEMBER 4, TWO YEARS EARLIER**

* * *

MIYAGI, JAPAN

As the last bell rang, signaling the end of school, a hand slapped rudely onto Hitoka Yachi's notebook in front of her.

"Yacchan, are you doing anything to celebrate your birthday?" gushed the brunette who had just crumpled her hard work from the past two hours. "If you're not doing anything, you should come to karaoke with me and--"

"Hitoka," came Kenma's cold voice from behind them. "Don't talk to garbage. Pack up and let's go."

"You're not in charge of her, Kozume-kun," sneered Kuzuri, tossing back her hair.

"He's not, but he's my best friend, so don't talk to him like that," said Hitoka quietly, slipping the rest of her things into her messenger bag and standing. "Sorry, I'll have to pass up on karaoke."

Kuzuri grabbed Hitoka's wrist. "We don't have to go to karaoke, we can just go shopping together, yeah? Maybe a movie?"

"Sorry," repeated Hitoka as she detached her wrist from Kuzuri's grasp, "but I said no."

"Come on, maybe just some food--"

"Kuzuri-kun," drawled a voice from across the room. "No wonder you're in last rank. You don't even understand the word no."

Hitoka was only the slightest bit surprised by Suguru Daishou's interference. Ever since the time Kenma had whacked him in the head with Daichi's laptop, Daishou had actually been mildly tolerable, the worst of their interactions being banter a bit too insulting to be considered lighthearted. At some point, mildly tolerable had become 

Kuzuri flushed bright red. "Nobody asked _you,_ Daishou."

Daishou just shrugged, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "C'mon, Asahi. Omi's waiting for us."

The large boy sent Hitoka a shy smile as he followed Daishou out of their classroom, mouthing at her, "Happy birthday."

Hitoka smiled back. When Asahi Azumane had transferred to their middle school the previous year, she'd assumed that he'd be just as terrifying as the rest of the large, scary-looking guys in her class, but a few conversations they'd held after The Incident had proven her entirely wrong. Asahi really was one of the nicest guys in their year.

"You're still talking?" came Kenma's annoyed voice, cutting over Kuzuri's rambling. "Nobody wants to listen to that."

"Let's just go," sighed Hitoka as she pushed Kenma away from Kuzuri, who was now leaning close to her best friend in a failed effort to intimidate him. "See you Monday, Kuzuri-kun."

Once they were out of the classroom and on their way down the hallway, Kenma crossed his arms. "I don't see why you're so nice to these people who just keep on screwing you over, Hitoka."

"It doesn't help me at all to be rude," Hitoka countered. "It's not like I'm being a pushover."

Kenma's gold gaze locked onto her. "You did Ishiki's homework for her. You're getting snacks for Isoda's group at break everyday. You didn't even say anything when Ueno broke the pen your mom gave you."

"Fine, so what if I am?" sighed Hitoka, breaking eye contact. "At least I'm not being bullied as badly anymore."

Kenma's lips thinned before he sighed, running one hand through his dyed blond hair. "Let's not fight on your birthday, yeah?"

"Fine by me," Hitoka chirped as they left the main building of the school.

For a day in September, the temperature was abnormally warm. Within moments of leaving the air-conditioned building, Hitoka could feel the material of her shirt, dampened by sweat, clinging to her back. The sun was still high, the sky was clear. All in all, if Hitoka could manage to ignore the sweltering heat, It was a good day.

They arrived at the bus stop right as their bus arrived, and they filed on together, scanning their cards at the front to pay the fare. The bus was mostly full, since most people would rather take the air-conditioned bus than walk or take the subway, but they managed to find two seats together at the back of the bus.

Kenma sighed heavily as he sat down in the aisle seat. "We're going to Daichi's place, right?"

Hitoka nodded. "Mom's on a business trip."

The bus ride to her oldest cousin's apartment was silent between the two of them except for Kenma offering her an earbud so they could share music as normal. The good thing about Daichi's apartment was that it was right by the bus stop, so the amount of time they had to walk in the heat after riding a chilly bus had been reduced to barely half a minute. Being one of the newer apartment complexes in the area, the facilities were well-maintained, and so even the entry hall and elevators, which were always dark and muggy and full of mosquitoes at Hitoka's actual apartment, were bright-lit and cool.

_"Tadaima!"_

Sugawara turned around from laughing at something playing on the television. "Oh, you're home!" he cheered, grinning widely at Hitoka. "And Kenma's here!"

"Hitoka, Kenma, good to see you," Daichi said as he exited the kitchen with a large wooden spoon in one hand and frosting on his cheek. "Koushi, come help me."

"Duty's calling," said Sugawara with a wink towards the two as he slid off of the couch and headed for the kitchen.

Hitoka followed Sugawara towards the kitchen. "Did you guys make a cake?"

"Yeah, happy birthday," sighed Daichi as he sent her a smile and ruffled her hair with his free hand.

"You didn't have to go through all that trouble," Hitoka protested, feeling shy at the thought that her cousin had actually baked a cake for her. "You could've just gotten one from the grocery store."

"Nonsense!" Sugawara interjected. "Our Hitoka-chan's turning fourteen! You only turn fourteen once, you know."

The rest of the day went in a very celebratory manner. While Hitoka had been talking to Daichi about her day, Sugawara had hid her bag somewhere in the apartment, insisting that she should have fun on her birthday instead of studying for hours, and had then proceeded to drag her and Kenma to the movie theater for the rest of the afternoon, before returning home for dinner, cake, and a night of gaming in front of Daichi's new television.

By the time midnight came, Hitoka was exhausted, but she joined Kenma on the balcony in the back of her cousin's apartment to watch stars together.

"Today was nice," commented Kenma in a low voice.

"Yeah, it was," agreed Hitoka as she handed a pair of binoculars to Kenma. "You ever think about what it might be like to have one of those big parties, though?"

"I don't want one," was Kenma's immediate reply.

"I mean, I don't think I want one either," Hitoka admitted, "but do you ever wonder?"

Kenma shifted so that he could lean his elbows on his knees, propping himself up to gaze through the binoculars at the sky. "Hmm. Maybe someday we'll go to one."

A smile spread on Hitoka's face. "Yeah. Someday," she said softly, gazing up at the stars.

* * *

EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, USA

"And in honor of us starting high school, let's party all night!"

"Shut up before we get a noise complaint from my neighbors, Shittykawa."

"Iwa-chan, you're so mean!"

Tadashi Yamaguchi laughed at his friends' antics as he seated himself between Kei and Shouyou on the sofa. "Hajime's not wrong, Tooru."

"I hate all of you," grumbled Tooru, sticking his tongue out at Tadashi as he flopped upside down over Hajime's lap. "You're all mean to me. I'm packing up and moving to Japan."

"Do it. I dare you," teased Hajime as he jabbed his fingers at Tooru's exposed stomach, eliciting an indignant yelp.

"Nobody would even miss you," deadpanned Kei.

"Kei, be nice," Tadashi said reproachfully. "But Japan is nice. I was there over the summer. Miyagi, actually. Visiting family."

"And I lived there for the first thirteen years of my life," added Tetsurou. "You want recommendations for good schools? I can help you."

"All of you are _terrible,_ I say. Absolutely terrible," Tooru huffed. "Tobio, what do you say?"

"Bye," said Tobio in a monotone, and next to him, Yuutarou Kindaichi and Akira Kunimi barely managed to stifle their laughter.

"Terrible!" screeched Tooru. "I hate all of you."

"Do you hate me, Tooru?" asked Shouyou with an exaggerated frown.

"Not you, Sho-chan. Never you," Tooru chirped as he rolled off of Hajime's lap to ruffle Shouyou's hair.

Lev waved a hand from the other end of the couch. "What about me?"

"I don't hate you either, Lev," Tooru assured, climbing back into Hajime's lap.

The group lulled into a peaceful silence for a moment, only broken by the sounds of the game that Keiji and Shigeru were playing.

"I feel like we're missing someone," remarked Keiji as his character on screen threw up a victory sign when Shigeru's collapsed with a K.O. over its head.

"Koutarou's not here," offered Tetsurou.

Keiji shook his head before taking a sip of his drink. "Not Kou, someone else. I don't know, it's just a feeling."

"I kind of have that feeling too," Tadashi admitted. "It's weird."

Tooru frowned as he sat up, squeezed between the arm of the loveseat and Hajime. "Well, we're all here except for Kou, so I have no idea what you guys are talking about."

"Yeah, it's weird," sighed Keiji before turning back to the television. "Want to play another round, Shigeru?"

"No, you're too good at this," groaned Shigeru, who was lying on the ground face down.

"Weird," Tadashi muttered as he leaned his head back, thumping it against the cool window. Above, he could see the stars glittering in the distance, and he was caught off-guard for a second by how bright they seemed.

He shook it off. "My turn, then," he said with a grin, sliding onto the ground next to Keiji.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real update will still be posted sometime this week, but I'll be taking a week off after that since I'll be starting school next week, so chapter 12 will be scheduled for the first Wednesday of September. See you guys soon, and I hope you enjoyed this bonus scene :3
> 
> Happy Haikyu!! Day!
> 
> Chapter 11 Post Date: TBD
> 
> Chapter 12 Post Date: September 2


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Hitoka is brought into a secret plan and has a very interesting conversation.

Hitoka stared in horror at the large bruise on Tobio’s side. “Does it still hurt?”

“It’s fine,” huffed Tobio, dropping his shirt to cover the discoloration and folding his arms over his chest. “Shouyou’s overreacting.”

“I am not. In fact, you’re the one underreacting here, considering this isn’t the first time,” said Shouyou with a cool note in his voice. “And this is why we’re taking down Tooru Oikawa.”

Hitoka nodded absently, a frozen feeling still numbing her. This didn’t seem real.  _ This is real. This is real life. Just because you’re in America doesn’t mean there aren’t bullies. _

“We need to know you’re in on this, Hitoka,” said Shouyou seriously. “If you want to be friends with Tooru, that means we’re over. Have to be, because you shouldn’t hurt your friends anyways.”

“No, Tooru’s bullying Tobio, that’s not okay,” Hitoka replied automatically. Her mind flashed to worse times in middle school and bruises on her own forearms, and she shuddered.

“That’s not okay,” she repeated.

Shouyou let out a breath of relief. “Thanks, Hitoka. I really appreciate you being here for us.”

“Bullies need to be stopped, no matter who they are,” said Hitoka quietly as she let her gaze flit down to her hands. From her own experience, there was no way of just talking Tooru out of this. Bullies spoke in violence, in power plays. Victims couldn’t resolve situations just by playing nice. Tobio couldn’t suffer the way she had.

“So we’ve got Tooru Oikawa, evil dictator of North Shore. And how do you overthrow an evil dictator? You cut off his resources,” Shouyou started. Hitoka felt chills go down her spine at the eerie calmness that was coming from the normally hyper boy. “Tooru would be nothing without his status as star setter—a position he practically forced Tobio out of, by the way—”

“The coach chose him over me anyways,” interjected Tobio, sounding tired, as if this had been a conversation they’d held many times.

“Only because Tooru has blackmail on him,” Shouyou countered. “Second biggest resource, his greatest achievement: being both a hot person and a somewhat smart person. And thirdly—most importantly, too—his loyal fan club.”

As if on cue, a group of girls in Hitoka’s English class sauntered by them without noticing her, tittering something about “Tooru’s jawline” and “have you seen those legs” and “qualified for AIME, he’s so smart.”

“Hmm, I see what you mean,” Hitoka commented.

“So, the plan’s this,” Shouyou said conspiratorially. “Tooru’s going to be both starting setter and the smart guy, as long as he’s not busy or distracted with something unimportant. So we need to find a way to keep him busy with something—drama, maybe, or a girlfriend or boyfriend—”

“He got back together with Hajime,” Hitoka interrupted.

Shouyou blinked. “Oh, should’ve seen that coming.”

Tobio huffed. “Iwaizumi deserves better.”

“Well, Hajime will probably take up a good amount of his time,” said Shouyou, “so it works out. We’ll find out some way to stir up drama, to take up more of his time. That way he’s too busy to spend all his time practicing, or all his time studying.”

_ This sounds more like a revenge plot than taking down a bully. _ “Is that really the right thing to do?” Hitoka asked uneasily. “What’s it got to do with us if he works hard?”

Shouyou blinked at her. “Hitoka, he’s a bully. If we want to stop him, he can’t be at the top of the food chain. He has to know what it’s like to be at the bottom if he’s going to learn anything.”

“Hate to say it, but it’s true,” said Tobio gruffly.

“Fine,” sighed Hitoka. It still didn’t feel right, but she could understand their reasoning. “What about the fan club?”

“It would be way easier to get rid of them if you stole that Burn Book, Hitoka,” Shouyou said bluntly. “Then they’d know what he’s like—collecting blackmail on people.”

“Releasing it would get a lot of people in a lot of trouble, though,” protested Hitoka. “That’s—that’s not fair.”

Shouyou crossed his arms. “They shouldn’t have done bad things then.”

“Sometimes it’s not their fault, sometimes it’s because of the situation that they’re put in,” Hitoka countered. “And everyone has secrets.”

“And people need to take responsibility for their actions anyways,” Shouyou retorted heatedly.

“Okay, don’t argue,” Tobio intervened with a tilt of his head towards a girl who had turned around to look at them as the volume of their conversation had risen.

“Sorry,” Shouyou said immediately, directing an apologetic glance towards Hitoka with an awkward ruffle of his own hair. “I was getting too upset. We’ll figure out another way, yeah?”

Hitoka nodded, relieved. “Yeah.”

Shouyou returned the nod. “Yeah. But if we want the plan to work, you’ll have to keep hanging out with Tooru like you don’t know anything. Can you do it?”

Hitoka’s lips quirked into a half smile, the first one since she’d held hands with Tadashi earlier. “Yeah. I’m a good actor.”

Tobio tapped Hitoka on the shoulder, and she turned to face upwards, noticing a guarded expression on his face. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s fine if you don’t. We can handle it ourselves.”

“No,” Hitoka sighed, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. “I can do it.”

The bell rang then, and Shouyou leapt back with a ghost of his normal grin. “Well, then. Let’s get to homeroom, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Hitoka echoed and followed the two boys towards Mr. Takeda’s classroom at the end of the hall.

“Oi, Hitoka!” called a voice from behind her as an arm wound around her shoulder. “G’morning to you, baby-chan.”

“Tetsurou-san!” squeaked Hitoka reflexively as she grinned up at him, managing to keep herself from flinching at the volume of her friend’s greeting. And then the realization hit her like a bus.

She’d forgotten that betraying Tooru would mean betraying the rest of the Crowns, and the rest of the Crowns included…

_ Well, this might be a problem. _

* * *

“I don’t get it,” groaned Lev, leaning his chin on the table. “I’m sorry, guys. I’m so stupid.”

“No, you’re not stupid. It’s okay not to understand yet, you’re trying your best, Lev,” Hitoka said with an encouraging smile. “Let’s just go over it again, yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Lev sadly, sliding back in his seat next to Hitoka.

Ever since Lev and Morisuke had fought back in October, the task of tutoring Lev to keep him from failing all his classes had first fallen on Tooru, the obvious leader of the group, but a mere three days in, Tooru had lost all patience with him. Tetsurou managed a bit better, lasting two weeks before he threw a textbook at Lev’s head. Surprisingly, Kei kept his patience the best when it came to tutoring, but he was also so harsh that he ended up making Lev cry three times in the first week, so in the end Hitoka had offered to help Kei with tutoring poor Lev.

Hitoka stifled a yawn as Kei took over with his explanation on exponential functions. She’d barely gotten four hours of sleep the night before, and she was exhausted.

_ I should talk to Morisuke, _ Hitoka thought to herself. Between her own schoolwork, tutoring Lev, helping Shouyou and Tobio with their plan to take down Tooru and hiding it from her friends, continuing to check in with Kenma on a daily basis, and planning her own study sessions with Keiji and Tadashi at the same time, she was a bit too busy.

Morisuke really had been a great tutor for Lev; even with both Kei and Hitoka helping Lev, his scores didn’t compare to the scores he’d gotten back when it had been Morisuke tutoring him. And if Morisuke would tutor Lev again, it would mean less of a workload for Hitoka.

On the other hand, Hitoka would also have less on her plate if she hadn’t been so worried about the rest of her friends finding out about taking down Tooru. If she hadn’t agreed to help out…

_ No, Hitoka, _ she told herself sternly with a shake of her head.  _ Tooru’s a bully. You saw how he treated that girl yesterday. And he hasn’t stopped bothering Tobio either, you know that. This is important. What he’s doing is wrong. _

At the same time, she still didn’t feel right, lying to the rest of the Crowns. Letting out a sigh, she tugged at her hair as she stared at her own textbook, not really taking in any of the content on the page. Some part of her wished she could tell Tetsurou—they still hung out pretty often, often just getting food and chatting in Japanese about everything from family issues to typical gossip—but she knew that wouldn’t go well. After all, Tetsurou—the Crowns in general—had been friends with Tooru first; Hitoka was just the new girl they’d happened to find interesting.

And it wasn’t like they didn’t know what Tooru was like. Wasn’t that the whole reason Tadashi and Keiji had left the Crowns in the first place, according to Tetsurou? Why Shouyou and Tobio weren’t in the group anymore? Because they didn’t like how Tooru treated people? If the rest of the Crowns really cared to change Tooru, they would’ve done it earlier, wouldn’t they?

“You’ve been acting weird lately, Hitoka.”

Hitoka started at Kei’s voice— _ when did Lev leave? _

Kei’s gaze kind of reminded her of Kenma’s. Piercing, as if he could tell exactly what stupid move she was going to make next. Almost scary in how steady and condescending it was—not as much as Tooru’s own death stare, but with a similar glint, as if he was a large cat that had found a mouse nosing around in his territory.

Hitoka didn’t move.

Kei broke their impromptu staring contest first, putting his mechanical pencil down. “When I say lately, I mean you’ve been acting strange ever since the day after that party on Halloween. So, we’re going on a month and a half, now.”

“I’ve been tired lately?” Hitoka winced at how it sounded more like a question than a response.

Kei raised his eyebrows.

“I just,” stuttered Hitoka. She should’ve accounted for this. Kei was smart and extremely observant. Of course she should’ve expected him to figure it out. She’d been so worried about Tetsurou finding out all along that she’d forgotten that there was a reason Kei was still the brains of the group.

“Lev and I noticed you acting weirdly, but he didn’t want to say anything,” continued Kei when Hitoka didn’t finish her sentence. “He’s more observant than people expect. He’s stupid, but not when it comes to people.”

“Where did he go?” Hitoka asked in an attempt to change the subject.

“Bathroom, and don’t change the subject,” Kei deadpanned with an unimpressed glare.

Hitoka wilted.

Kei threw her a genuinely concerned look. “You know we all think of you as a close friend, right? Any of us would be glad to talk if you’re feeling down. I’d actually really appreciate if you talked to us, actually. Or even just me—I mean, one of us, if that’s less, uh, intimidating.”

_ A close friend. _

Hitoka bit her lip.

“I have a friend,” she started, uncertain as to how to continue.

Kei tilted his head. “We’re your friends.”

“I-I mean,” she stammered, lacing her hands together nervously. “Another friend.”

“Back in Japan?” queried Kei.

“Well, yeah,” Hitoka blurted. “I mean, no. I mean, I have a friend back in Japan, but—”

“Did something happen to them?”

“No, that’s not it,” Hitoka grimaced with a definitive shake of her head.  _ I don’t want to lie to Kei. But I can’t tell him the truth either. What do I do? _

“So what is it?” Kei asked, making eye contact with her.

_ Tooru’s bullying my friend, _ Hitoka wanted to say. But Kei probably already knew what the leader of the Crowns was like. What came out instead was, “What if I really like Tadashi Yamaguchi?”

Kei flinched, and the eye contact broke off.

Wincing, Hitoka shrunk. “Sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s okay if you like Tadashi,” interrupted Kei quietly. “Seriously.”

“Tetsurou told me a little bit about why he’s a bit of a taboo topic with the group,” Hitoka said to fill the silence that had fallen between them.

Kei’s lips quirked in a half smile, half grimace. “We had a fight.”

“Yeah, Tetsurou did say,” Hitoka admitted.

Leaning back, Kei heaved a long sigh. “A disagreement. Over Tooru, actually. Um, when he gets stressed, he can tend to be a bit of a bully.”

“Oh,” said Hitoka. So she’d been right—the rest of the Crowns knew. She hesitated before continuing. “Yeah, I know. I heard from other people.”

Kei glanced at her again. “You probably want to ask why we didn’t do anything if we knew, right?”

_ Was it that obvious? _ “I mean, I used to be bullied in Japan, so yeah,” Hitoka answered bluntly.

Kei nodded with a grimace. “Yeah. We didn’t really know what to do. We tried to stop him, and he did for a while, but it really just comes on and off. When he gets like that, nobody can really get through to him. It wasn’t like we could just abandon him, so we stayed by his side.”

“Oh,” Hitoka repeated. “That does make sense.”

“Yeah, what kind of friends would we be if we just dropped him when he acted out?” Kei let out a dry laugh. “But Tooru was also really bad for Tadashi’s mental health, so at some point, Tadashi had enough.”

“And that’s when you had that fight?”

“Right,” affirmed Kei, shifting back with a shrug. “But seriously, I don’t mind if you like him. I don’t even have any bad feelings towards him. We both said shitty stuff to each other, but I know that it was out of anger. I just don’t think my presence in his life is positive, or necessary.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Hitoka disagreed.

Kei fixed her with an unimpressed stare. “Well, I do, so that’s that. And I trust that you know not to go spilling this to anyone else, right?”

“R-right,” Hitoka squeaked, shrinking a bit at his dark gaze.

The dark gaze disappeared instantly. “Good. Now, I’m going to go find Lev, because he should not have been gone for this long.”

“Haha,” said Hitoka weakly, nodding as Kei got up and headed towards the bathroom.

Leaning back, Hitoka released a breath of relief. _Whew. That was close. I almost just told Kei everything._ _But, I can worry about this later. Now I need to study._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....As do I. School just started and I am not vibing.
> 
> Next Post Date: September 2-4


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I'M BACK! (for now)
> 
> aka in which Hitoka is busy, finds out more about her friends' past, and derails a plan.

As November ended and December rolled around, Hitoka’s regret over everything tripled at the very least.

She was down to at most three hours of sleep a night, consistently had at least a quiz or two every week thanks to her AP classes, and all the drama going on with her friends was only adding to her stress. Daichi and Sugawara hadn’t been much help, either, since they kept trying to ask her about what was so obviously stressing her out, and even though she knew that they just wanted to help, it just created a whole new problem because she didn’t want to burden them with her school drama.

Art class really was the only place she could have any peace and quiet whatsoever, and even that had been somewhat ruined ever since two Fridays ago when Lev ran into their class with a loud greeting to Hitoka and an even louder, tearful apology to Morisuke, who didn’t respond and just glared at him until he left. Ever since then, a weird awkwardness had hung in the air between Hitoka and Morisuke during art class, neither of them really wanting to address the issue but also not being able to ignore it entirely.

Hitoka rubbed her temples as the bell rang, signaling the end of school, and nodded at Keiji and Morisuke as they waved goodbye to her and left their art classroom. She swept her own things into her backpack and echoed a goodbye to Mr. Takinoue, stepping out of the classroom into the sun.

“Ughh,” she groaned, digging her fingers into the back of her neck to work out a knot.

“You good, Hitoka?”

Tadashi’s voice was as soothing as ever, and she smiled automatically at him as he stepped up next to her on their way out of school.

“Yeah, just a bit stressed,” Hitoka sighed, rubbing at her temples again. “And really tired.”

“Is there any way I can help?” asked Tadashi.

Hitoka quirked a quick smile. “I’ll be fine, I’m just busy with a lot of things. I’m really looking forward to winter break.”

“Yeah, understandable,” Tadashi agreed, the concerned look melting into a smile. “Let me know if there’s anything I can help with, though, okay? Even if you just want to vent or something. I mean, I know that you have a lot of friends, but I’d be happy to listen if you wanted to.”

Hitoka could feel a blush rising on her cheeks. “Thanks, Tadashi. That means a lot to me.”

Tadashi reddened and ducked his head bashfully. “It’s n-nothing, just know I’m here for you, alright?”

“Alright,” Hitoka said shyly, tugging at her hair.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Tadashi smiled as he tightened his backpack straps. “Gotta head to club.”

Hitoka grinned back. “See you!”

Throwing her a small wave, Tadashi turned and headed towards the main building of the school. Hitoka stared dopily after him for a few moments before shaking her head and starting for the front entrance of the school. Tooru had told her during lunch to meet them at his car after school, since they had to finish with the planning for the upcoming winter fundraiser.

_ To be honest, _ Hitoka thought to herself,  _ being a part of the Crowns is a lot of work. _

Especially since Tooru was the head of the student activities committee, and the fact that the seniors had left everything to them to handle, it really was a lot of work, even split between the five of the Crowns and Yui Michimiya, the co-head of the committee.

_ I wonder when I’ll get to sleep tonight, _ Hitoka mused absently.

“Psst, Hitoka!”

“Oh, hey, Shouyou, Tobio,” Hitoka greeted. “What are you two doing here? I need to go to Tooru’s house to plan the fundraiser.”

“Yeah, we know, sorry,” said Shouyou apologetically, ducking out from behind the candy cane grams table. “We were just wondering if you had those notes for Japanese?”

Tobio nodded fervently. “Our exam’s tomorrow, remember?”

Hitoka took a moment to process—it had totally left her mind that they’d mentioned it the previous day when studying together during homeroom—before she remembered that she’d fortunately compiled a collection of notes before going to bed the night before.

“Right, right,” said Hitoka hastily as she slipped off her backpack and opened it. “Here, this should be all of it. Sorry, I was really tired.”

Shouyou shot her a concerned look. “Take care of yourself, alright?”

“Yeah, don’t overwork yourself,” said Tobio in a gruff voice. “As trashy as the Crowns are, I think they’d agree. If you’ve got too much going on, just drop something.”

_ But I can’t, _ she protested internally.  _ I can’t drop anything. I can’t fail you guys, and I can’t fail the Crowns, and I can’t just give up on anyone. Or anything. _

She only smiled. “I’m okay, really,” she assured them, slinging her backpack back over her shoulder. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Good luck with studying, and don’t get distracted, okay?”

“Got it!” Shouyou replied with a wide smile, Tobio nodding in agreement next to him.

“Good,” Hitoka grinned back. “Bye, you two.”

“Bye,” Tobio assented, pushing Shouyou away by the shoulders. “Come on, Hinata. Library.”

Hitoka felt her grin widen at the sight. Giggling under her breath, she turned towards the parking lot, where she noticed Tooru waiting.

“Tooru!” she called as she approached the boy’s Audi.

“Baby!” he cheered, swinging an arm around her shoulders. “How was your day?”

“It was good!” Hitoka responded with a smile as she opened the door to the passenger seat. “How was yours?”

“Exhausting,” groaned Tooru, sliding into the driver’s seat. “The others are already at my house, by the way. They took Tetsurou’s car.”

“Oh, okay,” said Hitoka.

Tooru nodded as he turned on the engine. “Oh, yeah. I saw you talking to Tobio Kageyama and Shouyou Hinata. What was that about?”

“Oh,” Hitoka stuttered. “I was helping them study for their Japanese test yesterday in homeroom and I promised to bring them some notes, so they were just getting notes.”

“You’re a really kind person, Hitoka,” commented Tooru, reaching over to pat her head as he stopped at the red light.

Hitoka flushed. “Not really. I really just do what I can to help others,” she said quietly with a shrug.

Tooru rolled his eyes playfully. “Yeah, that’s what kind means, baby.”

Hitoka muffled a yawn, nodding. “So you know them?”

The air suddenly grew a bit tense. “What?” Tooru queried.

“You know Tobio and Shouyou?” Hitoka clarified, glancing up at her friend.

Tooru’s lips were pressed together, and a strange expression had taken over his customary smile. An awkward silence fell between them, the only sound the roar of the engine as the light turned green and the car lurched forward.

_ Oh, no, I shouldn’t have asked that. _ Hitoka mentally slapped her forehead. “Sorry, was that—”

“Shouyou’s a good kid, but let me tell you something about Tobio Kageyama,” said Tooru, voice strangely detached. “We were best friends in middle school.”

Hitoka whipped her gaze around to meet his eyes.  _ Is he opening up to me about what happened? _

He gave her a half-smile. “I know, right? Me, best friends with a dork like him? I don’t even—whatever.”

“So then, in eighth grade,” Tooru continued, as if starting a long story, “we both got on our school’s volleyball team, but we were competing for the same spot, because we were both setters, right? And that’s when Tobio started to get really weird.”

“How?” Hitoka interjected quietly.

Tooru made a face. “He started constantly watching me during practices. When I was starting setter, he’d be staring at me the whole game. When he was, he’d always look for my reaction first. It was just really weird. Especially when I confronted him about it, he always denied it totally, which just made it weirder.

“Then you add in the fact that he was a total tyrant when he was playing, a huge show-off, constantly yelling at people, nobody on the team liked him,” said Tooru, tone poisonous. “I tried to help him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen. Of course he wouldn’t, he was constantly undermining my authority as captain and openly competing for my spot.”

“Was he doing it on purpose?” Hitoka asked.

Tooru snorted. “Does it matter? No matter what his intentions were, the actions were there. And nobody liked it, so one time during a game where he was setting, they started a coup, and when the opponent was at set point, nobody jumped for his set.”

_ No wonder Tobio doesn’t think he’s good enough as a setter. _ “That has to be traumatizing,” mumbled Hitoka.

Grimacing, Tooru shrugged. “Well, he had to learn his lesson. But of course, he just blamed it all on me, because obviously he thought that it was all my idea. I tried to make up with him and explain things, but he just wouldn’t listen to anything anyone said to him. So we got in a fight. I talked shit about him, he talked shit about me, and I punched him.”

“Oh, gosh,” said Hitoka faintly.

“Yeah, I know,” Tooru laughed, but it sounded forced. “From there, everything went straight to hell. I tried to apologize, of course, but he wouldn’t listen and instead, he went to my parents and told them all the blackmail he had on me.”

“No,” Hitoka whispered in horror.

Tooru nodded with a grimace. “Yep. So in return, I spread rumors about him to the rest of the school.”

_ So that’s why Tobio hates Tooru so much. _ Hitoka buried her face in her hands. “Tooru, that escalates things. That makes things worse.”

“I know,” Tooru sighed, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. “At least, I do now. At the time it seemed like a good idea. Now? It just feels like it was all so stupid.”

Hitoka kept her face buried in her hands. “Yeah, that makes sense,” she remarked blandly. “It does sound pretty stupid.”

Tooru pouted, and the tension broke. “Since when did you start sassing me?”

* * *

“I have a plan,” whisper-shouted Shouyou as he slid into the seat next to Hitoka’s mere moments before the bell rang to signal the start of homeroom.

“You have a test in two periods,” Hitoka said absently as she went through her physics notes, halfway through rereading the key points. “And I have one in four.”

“No, no, for the Tooru thing,” Shouyou corrected, leaning in as Tobio sat down behind Hitoka.

Hitoka glanced up at her friends from her notes. “Did you guys spend your time yesterday coming up with a new plan instead of studying?”

Tobio huffed. “We finished studying before we started planning, don’t worry.”

“Okay, that’s good, then,” Hitoka conceded, going back to her notes.

“So you know how we said that creating drama would keep him busy?” said Shouyou in a low voice. “We were thinking, what if we made one of the others—maybe Lev, he’s the one most likely to fall for it—think that Tooru was mad at them?”

Giving up on her notes, Hitoka decided to leave her physics exam grade to chance. “What do you mean?”

Shouyou and Tobio exchanged a look. “You know the candy cane grams, right?”

“Yeah, Tooru was just telling me the other day about how those are really just a scam, and how he’d never send one because they’re stupid,” Hitoka commented.

Shouyou frowned. “Wait, telling just you, or all of the Crowns?”

“I mean, he was ranting about how useless candy cane grams are for all of Monday,” Hitoka said dryly.

“Ughh,” Tobio groaned as Shouyou thunked his head into the desk.

“Okay, so that plan’s out,” came Shouyou’s muffled voice.

Hitoka couldn’t help a quick smile at their reactions. “It’s okay, we’ll figure out a plan, yeah?”

“A plan for what?” a new voice drawled, and all three of them swiveled in unison to find Tetsurou Kuroo leaning against Hitoka’s desk with a toothy smirk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO SORRY FOR THE LATE AND UNFORTUNATELY SHORT UPDATE. Ugh, I totally underestimated how busy I'd be because of school. From now on I'm probably going to update approximately once every two weeks until further notice, with occasional short scenes if I'm free.
> 
> Many apologies ;-; but once college apps season is over, I'm probably going to dedicate a lot more time to writing. Possibly. But I do have quite a few other stories planned for after I finish this, so I'm not disappearing any time soon, don't worry :3
> 
> Next Post Date: Sep. 23 probably
> 
> UPDATE: So I'm going to put this off for a bit until I'm done at least with ED stuff for college apps. If I have time I'll update, but right now I'm a bit too busy and not productive/motivated enough to actually commit to a consistent schedule ;u; very sorry, but I promise I will come back to this :3


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